SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Parliament passed by 69-12 the second reading of a bill that will see the prosecutor-general’s position shift to a 6-year post elected by a 15-person body. Currently, the PM appoints the prosecutor-general on the advice of the minister of justice. Detractors of the bill say it is over-complicating the appointment process.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s First Deputy PM Tayirbek Sarpashev accused some political parties of hampering the Oct. 4 parliamentary election by trying to illegally collect voters’ biometric data. Mr Sarpashev did not name the parties.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF increased its GDP growth forecast for Uzbekistan to 6.8% from an earlier estimate of 6.2% although it also raised its inflation forecast to over 10%. The increase in inflation will all but cancel out any real GDP growth increase in Uzbekistan this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Damu, a state-owned fund that helps SMEs in Kazakhstan, said it is negotiating on behalf of local businesses for a better interest rate on loans from the Asian Development Bank. The ADB has made $500m worth of loans available to SMEs in Kazakhstan since 2010. The Damu fund wants a $228m tranche made available to SMEs with an interest rate of 14% or below.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kyrgyz Investment and Credit Bank (KICB), a popular lender in Kyrgyzstan, said it wants to issue debt worth 200m som ($2.9m), its largest ever issue. “The total amount of outstanding debt securities issued by the bank has reached 450m som, about 1% of the total volume of the bank’s liabilities,” Aliyev Bektur Kubanychbekovich, KICB deputy chairman, told local media.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
TBILISI/Georgia, SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A row has erupted in the Georgian Black Sea town of Batumi over damage to a statue of the South Caucasus’ most famous lovers — Ali and Nino. The opposition UNM party, the political machine of former president Mikheil Saakashvili, has accused the ruling Georgian Dream coalition of deliberating damaging the statue it erected in 2010.
Batumi has become a political battleground since 2012, when the Georgian Dream won a parliamentary election. Mr Saakashvili had treated Batumi as a pet project, lavishing cash, ornate buildings and grand designs on the city.
Now, though, the UNM accuses the Georgian Dream of pulling down many of these projects to undermine Saakashvili’s legacy in the city.
In a Facebook post, Mr Saakashvili, who is now the governor of Odessa in Ukraine, said that under the guise of moving the statue, the Georgian Dream had irreparably damaged it.
“Today, with the support of Russian oligarch Ivanishvili, the moving statue Ali and Nino was destroyed.” he said. The Georgian Dream has dismissed the allegations. The statues of Ali and Nino had been sited at the entrance to Batumi’s harbour, a prominent position in the city.
Ali and Nino was first published in 1937. It detailed a love affair between the Muslim Azeri Ali and Christian Georgian Nino, and is supposed to symbolise eternal love and understanding between nations.
The statue was designed by Georgian artist Tamara Kvesitadze.
Lincoln Mitchell, a Tbilisi-based political scientist, explained just why Batumi attracted so much attention from the Georgian Dream.
“The UNM government spearheaded a dramatic modernisation of Batumi, a city that 15 years ago was a sleepy coastal town led by a nasty warlord.” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz should diversify their assets, including cash, to protect themselves from the sharp swings in the value of currencies and commodities, Raushan Seitkazimova, head of the Central Bank’s monetary control unit, told media. The value of the Kyrgyz som has been fluctuating wildly, over the past few months.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Producer prices have risen by nearly 10% in the past year in Georgia, the country’s statistics office said. The main driver of the inflation was a sharp increase in prices of electricity, water and gas, rises all linked to the fall in the value of the Georgian lari.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan inaugurated a power plant in the Darvaza district, 250km north of Ashgabat, an indicator of how the country is setting itself up as a power exporter.
Turkish company Calyk Energy built the plant and US-based General Electric provided the four gas turbines for the 500MW power plant.
The official Turkmen media reported on Mr Berdymukhamedov’s visit to the opening of the plant.
It said: “The President stressed that Turkmenistan is constantly investing in electricity power generation, which will allow it to increase the exports to meet the demand of world markets.”
Turkmenistan is developing its electricity generation capacity. Power plants are being built in Turkmen- bashi, on the Caspian Sea coast, in the Lebap province, on the border with Uzbekistan, and in Mary, in the south-east of the country.
Turkmenistan is already exporting electricity to Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is considering a $65m loan to Astana LRT to buy 200 modern buses, media reported. Astana, the Kazakh capital, has been growing , putting major pressure on its public transport systems.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
