MAY 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz mobile operator Aktel discontinued its mobile services after it let its licence expire. In December 2013, a court in Bishkek declared Aktel bankrupt and said its debt amounted to around $147m. Aktel previously operated under the brand names of Fonex and 7Mobile. It has now transferred its assets, but not its debts, to Jeti Mobile.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
BISHKEK, MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a departure from normal diplomatic niceties, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev used the celebration of the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis in 1945 to warn of growing racism against workers from Kyrgyzstan in Russia.
Thousands of migrants workers from Kyrgyzstan and the rest of Central Asia travel to work in Russia each year, sending home their salaries but racist attacks in Russia have been on the increase, a rise that some have linked to the economic downturn.
Earlier this month, Russian media reported that a group of skinheads attacked and injured a group of Kyrgyz on the Moscow metro.
In pouring rain at Kyrgyzstan’s Eternal Flame War Memorial, Mr Atambayev said that Russia and Russians should respect their neighbours in Kyrgyzstan more.
“Kyrgyz families shared food and shelter with hundreds of thousands of refugees (from Russia). Most of them soon stayed here forever and became Kyrgyz,” he said.
“I want to give a reminder of this to our brotherly nation, Russia, where unfortunately fascist groups are rising up.”
Heads of states in the former Soviet Union usually use the annual Victory Day parade and celebrations to remind their people of the region’s common cause and their debt to Russia. By using the occasion to highlight racism in Russia, Mr Atambayev was adding emphasis to his comments.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Chinese companies said they will invest around $1.9b in Kazakhstan’s agriculture sector over the next few years, in an effort to boost trade and cooperation through its Silk Road Initiative. Gulmira Isayeva, Kazakhstan’s deputy minister of agriculture, told the FT that Chinese investment will help increase domestic production.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
ALMATY, MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A new information ministry announced last week by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will likely act as a censor and increase government control over the media, journalists and analysts said.
Mr Nazarbayev announced the Soviet-sounding ministry of information at the same time as he said that planned reforms to the land code would be postponed after they sparked a series of protests across the country.
He blamed a lack of public information about the reforms for the protests and said the new ministry would ease the flow of information from government to the people.
Political analyst Aidos Sarym said he thought that Mr Nazarbayev had been genuinely concerned his land reforms plans had been misunderstood.
“Authorities think that protests are just lack of communication. They think that if they will explain ‘properly’ to people, people will take it,” he said. “Nazarbayev understands that he lost his connection to the majority of population.”
But in an opinion piece on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian language website, reporter Svetlana Glushkova said that the government would try to use the new ministry to control social media, one of the few places where some form of free speech still exists in Kazakhstan, more tightly.
“I think the new ministry will increase control over social media, at first. Now you cannot see it [free speech] in TV or newspapers so the real resentment of the people, you will find it only on social media. The truth is there,” she said.
Kuralay Abylgazina, a journalist for a local news agency, agreed. She told the Bulletin that protests against the land reforms had worried the government.
“As of now, the ministry will most likely control content only from government media, but in future it will initiate some laws to regulate press freedom in the country,” she said. “And then we will see if this new government organ is a ministry of censorship.”
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia and Azerbaijan are the worst places in Europe and the South Caucasus to be a homosexual, bisexual, lesbian or a transgender person, the IGLA-Europe lobby group said in a report focused on the legal framework that countries have developed for equality issues.
Of the 49 countries ranked in its index, Azerbaijan was ranked bottom with a score of just under 5%, followed by Russia with 6.5% and then Armenia with around 7%. Georgia was the second highest ranked former Soviet state in 30th position with a score of around 30%. Estonia was ranked in 21st position.
Azerbaijan has been cracking down on opposition groups and media over the past year. European officials have said that this political crackdown has also involved a more general crackdown on civil rights — including against the gay and the lesbian communities.
IGLA-Europe agreed.
“Azerbaijan’s LGBTI community continued to face severe challenges in 2015,” it said in its report. “Numer- ous violent attacks were carried out against LGBTI individuals; several murders were reported and investigated throughout the year.”
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s oil production fell by 1.6% to 13.9m tonnes in Jan.-April 2016 compared to the same period last year, Reuters quoted an anonymous government source as saying. Azerbaijan’s oil production has been slowing for years, despite the government putting BP under increased pressure to stop the slow- down. Oil is the mainstay of the Azerbaijani economy and a drop in production means that government revenues fall.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Annualised inflation in Armenia for April measured -1.9%, the Statistics Committee said, the fifth consecutive month it has recorded price drops. Food prices shrank by 4.5%, while non-food prices remained stable. Price deflation is a sign of slow economic activity, a direct consequence of the economic malaise that has hit the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Remittances from Russia, which play an important role in these economies, have dried up.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A GM Uzbekistan executive in Russia said that the authorities in Uzbekistan had opened an investigation into the company for losses incurred by its Russian division.
Yelena Kuznetsova, director of marketing at the Russian representative office for Ravon, GM Uzbekistan’s brand in Russia, refused to confirm to Reuters, though, whether a news report on the opposition website Uzmetronom that police had detained an executive at
“The company (GM Uzbekistan) is being investigated because the Russian distributor was unable to repay its debt,” she said.
An earlier report by Uzmetronom said police had detained Tokhirjon Jalilov, the former GM Uzbekistan CEO, for a scam involving Ravon cars bound for Russia.
GM Uzbekistan is one of the country’s most important joint ventures. The Uzbek government owns a 75% stake in the project. GM owns a 25% stake.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
ALMATY, MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dariga Nazarbayeva, eldest daughter of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, owned a stake in an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands, a massive leak of data from a law firm in Panama showed.
The company called Asterry Holdings ltd was registered in the BVI in Sept. 2007 and struck off nearly five years later. Its offices were registered in Liechtenstein. It is unclear what assets the company ever held.
The revelation, though, is the second time that Kazakhstan’s ruling family has appeared in the Panama Papers. Ms Nazarbayeva’s son Nurali Aliyev, was revealed earlier this year to be the owner of a yacht and two other companies registered in BVI by Panama based Mossack Fonseca law company a the centre of the leak.
Both Ms Nazarbayeva and Mr Aliyev have high profiles in Kazakhstan. Ms Nazarbayeva is a deputy PM and has been spoken of as a future Kazakh president.
Mr Aliyev had been the deputy mayor of Astana until he quit abruptly in March so that he could concentrate on what he described as his business interests.
But with the economic outlook in Kazakhstan worsening, inflation rising and people losing their jobs, Mr Nazarbayev is treading carefully.
He is increasingly aware that he, his family and their supporters among the elite have to avoid being seen as excessively privileged and out-of-touch with ordinary people who have been struggling to survive what has become an increasingly tough and drawn out economic downturn.
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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
MAY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh businessman Kairat Boranbayev said he had bought a 50% share in Capital Partners, a holding company that owns Almaty’s Esentai Tower and Mall. Mr Boranbayev, who also owns the Kairat football club and the McDonald’s franchise in Kazakhstan, jumped to 15th place in Forbes’ ranking of Kazakhstan’s richest people this year, with a net worth of $350m. His daughter, Alima, married Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s grandson, Aisultan, in 2013.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
