Category Archives: Uncategorised

Kazakhstan bans Kyrgyz potato

MAY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s ministry of agriculture said it has banned imports of potatoes from Kyrgyzstan following an outbreak of Globodera rostochiensis, a pest that the Kazakh authorities found in several imported shipments. The Kazakh government sent back around 1,000 tonnes of potatoes to Kyrgyzstan citing international trade agreements between the two countries.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Turkmen president performs Hajj

MAY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov completed a visit to Saudi Arabia, where he performed the Hajj to Medina and Mecca. In Saudi Arabia, Mr Berdymukhamedov spoke to the head of Islamic Development Bank, Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani, about potential investments in Turkmenistan’s infrastructure projects.

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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

UNM MP quits 5 months from Georgia election

MAY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Five months before a parliamentary election, Georgian MP Giorgi Vashadze quit the opposition United National Movement (UNM) party because of what he described as its “closed” leadership style.

Mr Vashadze said he planned to set up his own political party in a move that may draw some support away from the UNM in what is expected to be a tight election battle with the ruling Georgian Dream coalition in October.

“People waited for new initiatives from the UNM, but this has been in vain,” Mr Vashadze told local media.

The UNM had excluded Mr Vashadze from its top ten list of candidates for the election in October. His former colleagues in the UNM accused him of being self-interested.

“Vashadze’s ambition was to be in the top ten of the party list. This was voted down. Quitting the party because of that reason is completely irresponsible,” Sergo Ratiani, MP and UNM’s secretary general, said.

Even so the row will hurt the UNM which is trying to position itself as a government in waiting ahead of the election. It lost power to the Georgian coalition in an election in 2012, having governed Georgia for eight years.

In late April, a poll sponsored by the local branch of the US-funded International Republican Institute showed just how close the election is likely to be. It said that the Georgian Dream party was still the most popular party with support at around

19%. The UNM came in second with 18%, but the surprise was the 12% support for for the Georgian Development Foundation, a movement founded by opera singer Paata Burchuladze.

Around 25% of the people polled, though, said they were either undecided on who they would for or wouldn’t vote at all, setting the scene for what analysts have said will be a close, hard-fought, election.

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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Stock market: Centerra gold

MAY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Centerra Gold shares rebounded 5% to 6.93 Canadian dollars last Friday after the regulator of the Toronto Stock Exchange briefly halted trading the day before, when news came through of a police raid at the office of a Centerra- owned company in Kyrgyzstan.

The stock continued to float around 7 Canadian dollars, settling on 7.18 yesterday, despite what could be regarded as poor quarterly results.

Centerra, though, still handed out its quarterly dividend of 0.04 Canadian dollars, in line with previous payments, which is something that other companies in the region have been dodging over the past few months if results have been lower-then-expected.

Low gold prices and slower-than-expected gold production have hit the company’s performance.

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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Tajik Air to fly to Beijing

APRIL 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s flagship carrier Tajik Air will start its Dushanbe-Beijing connection on May 2, a move that could boost trade ties with China. The direct flight will operate every Monday. Previously, Urumqi, in the Xinjiang region, was Tajik Air’s only Chinese destination.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Tajik Sodirot Bonk forces leave

APRIL 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tojik Sodirot Bonk, one of the biggest banks in Tajikistan, is forcing staff to take unpaid leave, media reported, an indication of the serious impact of an economic downturn. There were reports earlier this year of runs on banks. Tajikistan has been hit hard by a recession in Russia which has dried up remittance flows.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Gazprom Armenia applies discount

APRIL 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gazprom Armenia, the Russian owned gas distributor, said it will apply to the country’s regulator to lower consumer prices by 6%. The discount will be limited to households that consume 10,000 cubic metres of gas a year, the company said. Earlier this month, Gazprom said it would give the Armenian government a 9% discount on the gas it supplies.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Kyrgyz police raids Centerra

APRIL 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Toronto-listed miner Centerra Gold said that Kyrgyz police have raided the Bishkek offices of its wholly owned Kumtor Gold Company, reigniting a vicious row that has involved the miner and the government. For years, Centerra and the government have rowed about ownership of the Kumtor gold mine. Kumtor accounts for around 7% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP and is the country’s largest industrial asset.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Tajik government tightens NGO laws

APRIL 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Tajik government passed a law that forces NGOs to report to the authorities any grants received in the past 10 days. In mid- 2015, Tajikistan amended its law on NGOs with the stated objective of tracking funding for potential terrorist activity. There has been a general move in Central Asia towards tightening regulations of funding for NGOs. The authorities have said that is to crackdown on extremists and criminals, but others have said this is aimed at reducing foreign influence over NGOs and curtailing their independence.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

US prosecutors finally name Uzbek Pres. daughter in corruption probe

APRIL 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US named Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov, as the beneficiary of bribes worth $550m taken between 2007 and 2013 from telecoms companies wanting access to the Uzbek market.

This was the first time that Ms Karimova, 43, has been named in connection with the corruption case since news of the deals became public three years ago.

It’s also a reminder of just how tightly President Karimov and his family ran Uzbekistan, seemingly viewing it as their personal fiefdom, and how telecoms companies, from Sweden’s TeliaSonera to US-listed VimpelCom, had to bribe their way into the market of 30m people.

TeliaSonera rebranded as Telia Company earlier this month. Both Telia and VimpelCom are the subject of investigations in the corruption cases. Telia is also trying to sell off its subsidiaries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

A Bloomberg News report from New York said that prosecutors had named Ms Karimova after previous requests to recover cash, which they said had been laundered, were ignored.

“Prosecutors made the request in a letter to a Manhattan federal court judge on Thursday (April 21), saying Karimova and the group failed to respond to a civil forfeiture complaint against three bank accounts,” Bloomberg reported.

Ms Karimova had previously only been referred to, rather obliquely, as: “Government Official A, a close relative of a high-ranking Uzbek government official.”

Being named in the reports will bring further international notoriety on Ms Karimova.

She had once been spoken of as a future leader of Uzbekistan, a label she appeared to wear lightly while she produced pop videos, hosted fashion shows and concocted her own perfume range.

Now Ms Karimova has disappeared from public sight, having been placed under house arrest in Tashkent two years ago.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)