Category Archives: Uncategorised

Turkmen state workers receive salaries in bonds

DEC. 14/19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Sources working in Turkmenistan’s public sector told the opposition website Chronicles of Turkmenistan that from January 2016 the state will start paying part of government employees’ wages in bonds in order to save money.

A few days later, the state-run news agency confirmed the government was going to start issuing 5-year bonds, although it didn’t specify how the bonds would be distributed. It did say, though, that the main aim of the bonds was to develop Turkmenistan’s financial markets.

The Chronicles of Turkmenistan, which is a well-respect website, instead said that several government agencies would pay “12% or more of the salary” in government bonds.

Although rich in energy resources, Turkmenistan has had to adjust to the economic malaise that is pervading the Central Asian region.

The news flow from Turkmenistan is weak but there are signals that the economic downturn is hurting.

Chronicles of Turkmenistan also speculated that the cash withheld from government salaries would be used to pay for the 2017 Asian Indoors Games in Ashgabat.

In January 2015, Turkmenistan devalued its manat currency by 20%. Last month, the government allegedly banned public officials from withdrawing US dollars at exchange points.

Giving government workers bonds instead of cash effectively means deferring salary payments.

In October, the government said it would draft a plan for the sale of government companies in 2016, effectively an admission that it was running out of cash. The bond scheme is another attempt by to cut costs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

GM prices up in Uzbekistan

DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — GM-Uzbekistan, General Motors car-making venture in Uzbekistan, increased retail prices across its product line by up to 30%, the podrobno.uz news agency reported. Like the rest of the region, Uzbekistan has been facing a devaluation in its sum currency while inflation has increased.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Iran hints at increasing stake in the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz

DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran has said it is interested in increasing its stake in the Shah Deniz offshore gas exploration project in Azerbaijan, a move that would extend Iran’s influence over a project that is becoming increasingly important in Europe’s future energy plans.

Iran’s deputy minister Hossein Zamani Nia said Iran wanted to increase its stake in several international projects. “Several fields and projects in some countries are being examined,” Mr Zamani Nia told the IRNA news agency.

“Shah Deniz is one of those fields but a final decision has not yet been made.”

Through the subsidiary Naftiran Intertrade, state-owned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) owns a 10% stake in Shah Deniz, off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea.

BP is the project leader at Shah Deniz with a 28.8% share in the consortium. Turkey’s TPAO owns 19%, Azerbaijan’s SOCAR owns 16.7%, Malaysia’s Petronas controls 15.5% and Lukoil owns the remaining 10%.

The consortium is working on a second development phase of the project, which will more than double the field’s output.

The additional volumes will fill new westward pipelines, such as TANAP, which will pump gas to Turkey and Europe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Tajikistan and China swap currency

DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan and China completed a currency swap deal which they had arranged earlier in the year. Under the deal, China will give Tajikistan 3b yuan (around $470m) in exchange for the equivalent in Tajik somoni. The two sides said the deal would facilitate bilateral trade but it is also a way for China to give Tajikistan some hard currency.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Georgia moves towards EU visa-free entry treaty

DEC. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Commission said that Georgia had passed its benchmark test required for it to be eligible for a visa-free treaty with the EU, a major step towards the Georgian government’s key foreign policy objective of integrating more closely with the West.

It’s now expected that the European Parliament will vote sometime in the first half of next year on whether to formally allow Georgians visa-free entry to the Schengen region.

The Schengen region is named after the town in Luxembourg where EU members states struck a deal to ease travel requirements. Britain and Ireland, both EU members, declined to sign up to the deal. Norway, Ice- land, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are non-EU members who have signed up to the agreement.

And Georgia’s leaders appeared confident the European Parliament would vote to allow them easier access to Europe.

PM Irakli Garibashvili called it a historic day.

“Our country has confirmed once again that we are frontrunners among EU’s Eastern Partnership countries,” he said. “In response, Europe tells us that it is open for Georgian citizens.”

If the European Parliament did vote to allow Georgians visa-free entry it could irritate Russia which is sensitive about former Soviet states moving towards the West.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Kyrgyzstan reveals gold corruption

DEC. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Bishkek sentenced Dilger Zhaparov, head of the state-owned gold miner Kyrgyzaltyn, to three years in jail because of an unauthorised payment he made to Centerra Gold. Centerra Gold has denied any wrongdoing.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Turkey/Azerbaijan/Georgia defence ministers meet

DEC. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Defence ministers from Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia met up in Istanbul for their regular twice yearly meeting. Although no policy statements were made the meeting is significant for its timing. Turkey is looking for allies to bolster it in its row with Russia, triggered when one of its warplanes shot down a Russian fighter-jet over Syria last month.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Sweden jails Uzbek hitman

DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Swedish court sentenced Yury Zhukovsky, an Uzbek national, to 18 years in prison for the attempted murder of dissident Obid-kori Nazarov in February 2012, in a case that intensified attention on Uzbekistan’s human rights record.

The prosecutor in the trial accused the Uzbek government of ordering the murder of Mr Nazarov who had fled Uzbekistan to Sweden in 2006. He had been a popular cleric who preached against the government.

The judge, though, said that it was not possible to rule on who may have ordered the murder.

Zhukovsky was caught on CCTV camera in a shop in the remote northern town of Stromsund hours before Mr Nazarov was shot in the head with a revolver. Mr Nazarov survived the attempted murder but has been left with brain damage.

Human rights groups have criticised Uzbekistan record. They have said that the government pursues its enemies abroad.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

China buys controlling stake in major Kazmunaigas subsidiary

DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — China’s CEFC energy company will buy a controlling stake in KMG Inter- national, a subsidiary of Kazmunaigas, in a deal that helps Kazakhstan raise cash but also rids Western investors of one of the more interesting companies previously offered up by Kazakh officials as a potential IPO target.

The deal, which will give CEFC a 51% share in the Netherlands-based company, is valued at between $500m and $1b, sources told Reuters.

KMG International, formerly called Rompetrol, owns the Petromidia Navodari refinery and hundreds of petrol stations in Romania, Georgia, Bulgaria and Moldova.

It is affiliated with Switzerland- based KMG Trading, which secured a $3b deal in December with Vitol as the buyer of future oil shipments from Kazmunaigas’ 20% share of the Tengizchevroil consortium.

Neither KMG International nor KMG Trading could be reached for comment.

Kazmunaigas has unsuccessfully tried to sell off Rompetrol-owned assets over the past few years.

Samruk-Kazyna, Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund which owns Kazmunaigas, had said it wanted to sell KMG International in a round of privatisation set for 2016. Now, the privatisation of KMG International seems to have fallen out of this IPO bucket list.

Kazakhstan has said it wants to sell off state-owned companies involved in midstream and downstream operations in an effort to raise much-needed cash to restore financial stability during what has become a sustained downturn in oil prices.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Azerbaijan extinguishes Caspian Sea fire

DEC. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Azerbaijan said they had finally extinguished the fire at Platform No. 10 of the Guneshli shallow water oil rig off the coast of Baku, nearly two weeks after a storm smashed into it causing an explosion in a gas pipe.

Emergency crews also said they had received permission to search for the bodies of 26 missing oil workers from other littoral states bordering the Caspian Sea.

Three workers from the Oil Rocks platform and 23 workers from the Guneshli platform are still listed as missing.

Rescue teams have already found the bodies of seven workers killed in the fire on Dec. 4.

A final death toll of 33 would make it the worst offshore oil platform accident since the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 when 167 people were killed.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)