Category Archives: Uncategorised

Georgia’s court rules on pretrial detention

SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Constitutional Court ruled that it was illegal to keep a person in pre-trial detention for more than 9 months. The ruling is a major victory for the former mayor of Tbilisi Giorgi Ugulava who is accused of corruption. He is a member of the UNM and has said the accusations are politically motivated. Mr Ugulava has been in pre-trial detention for 14 months, after one of the charges was altered.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Coal production drops in Kazakhstan

SEPT. 14 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Coal production in Kazakhstan dropped by 6.7% in the first eight months of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014, data released by the Eurasian Economic Commission showed.

The Eurasian Economic Commission is the administrative arm of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. The Eurasian Economic Union is a trade bloc set up by the Kremlin that includes Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan.

The data showed a fairly pronounced slump in coal production in Kazakhstan, while the other countries maintained output.

The slump in Kazakhstan’s production may be yet another indicator of the impact of the economic recession. Kazakhstan relies heavily on coal to fire many of its larger industrial centres.

If order books are down, demand for coal and production would also slump.

Georgian winegrowers protest against falling prices

SEPT. 11 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Several hundred farmers protested in the ancient winemaking region of Kakheti in eastern Georgia, demanding that the government increase subsidies for harvested grapes.

Eyewitnesses said that the demonstrations were passionate and angry but peaceful, although some protesters brawled with police after tension boiled over. There were no reports of any injuries and only three people were detained but the unrest does show how the former Soviet Union’s economic malaise is deepening.

A grape farmer attending the protests told broadcaster Rustavi2 that they will not back down, but that people are afraid.

“I demand a rise of prices. People are afraid of this government, they do everything to keep us quiet. What should we do?” grape farmer Murtaz Gorkhelashvili said.

The price for a bunch of grapes has fallen by 40-55% this year because of a fall in wine export to Russia and Ukraine.

Western-imposed sanctions on Russia and a sharp fall in oil prices have tipped its economy into recession. A civil war has heavily dented Ukraine’s economy.

In 2014 wine production accounted for 2.5% of Georgia’s GDP, a higher proportion than France, even, where wine makes up around 0.9% of GDP.

Independent consultant and freelance wine writer Caroline Gilby described how important wine is to Georgia’s economy and also to its national identity.

“Wine is economically critical to this small country with its limited natural resources,” she said.

The government subsidy, an election promise by the Georgian Dream coalition in 2012, of an extra 0.35 lari per kilo of white grapes and 0.15 lari per red grapes for farmers is considered insufficient by the protestors.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Brazil MPs visit Azerbaijan

SEPT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A group of parliamentarians from Brazil visited Azerbaijan, promising to boost ties. The meeting is important for Azerbaijan as it works to widen its diplomatic reach, especially in the so-called BRIC countries which economists have said will power global growth.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Kazakh Mangistau receives inflow of migrants

SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Almaty and the oil-rich region of Mangistau in the west of the country are the only regions in Kazakhstan receiving a significant inflow of people looking for work, data published on the ranking.kz website reported. The data also showed that most of the people moving to these areas settled in villages rather than cities.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

S&P affirms BBB- for Kazakhstan

SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rating agency Standard & Poor’s affirmed Kazakhstan’s long-term sovereign debt rating at BBB with a negative outlook, but said weak governance hindered economic performance. It also highlighted limited monetary flexibility and an over-dependence on hydrocarbons as weaknesses.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

CPC pipeline upgrades pumping stations in Kazakhstan

ALMATY, SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), has finished upgrade work to two pumping stations that will boost the capacity of its oil pipeline running from west Kazakhstan to Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

Plans to increase the capacity of the Tengiz field near Atyrau have been delayed because of low oil prices, but the gradual expansion of the CPC’s capacity is still important.

Specifically, the latest upgrade work was focused on the pipeline’s two pumping stations in Kazakhstan. The upgrade will boost the flow of oil through the pipeline to 38m tonnes of oil from 35m.

This is a stepping stone towards hitting higher capacity. Nikolai Savin, a deputy vice-president at Russian pipeline company Transneft, explained the consortium’s ambitions.

“The expansion will allow us to increase the volume of transported oil to 67-70m tonnes a year,” local media quoted him as saying. “In the future, the Kazakh fields at Tengiz, Karachaganak and Kashagan will ship around 55m tonnes through CPC.”

CPC, which was established in 2001, is an international pipeline jointly operated by the Russian and Kazakh governments together with national and multinational oil companies led by US’ Chevron. Chevron is also the lead Western partner developing the Tengiz field in the Tengizchevroil consortium (TCO).

The Tengiz field is Kazakhstan’s main oil producer, pumping roughly 27m tonnes of oil each year. This is a third of Kazakhstan’s total oil production. Almost all of the oil produced by Tengiz is exported via CPC.

For years, TCO has been planning to expand production. The project was suspended, though, earlier this year because of the sustained low oil prices, frustrating both investors and the Kazakh government.

According to Sauat Mynbayev, Chairman of Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s state-owned company which holds shares in both CPC and TCO, a final investment decision for Tengiz will be made in Jan. 2016 (Sept. 17). In any case, he said costs had been cut.

“When it was planned, the TCO expansion was quoted at $38b,” Mr Mynbayev told the Interfax news agency. “In the current circumstances, we decided to re-negotiate with all contractors to bring the cost down to around $34b.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

LG to handle Uzbekistan’s database

SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — LG CNS, a Korea-based global IT service provider and subsidiary of LG, signed an agreement with the Uzbek government to manage its various databases. The parties have created the joint venture, LG CNS Uzbekistan. CEO Kim Daehoon said he wanted to use the joint-venture to pursue more government-orientated projects in Central Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Mixed messages air over Kazakh President’s daughter promotion

SEPT. 14 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Dariga Nazarbayeva, eldest daughter of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, officially quit as a member of parliament to begin her new job as a deputy PM.

Analysts have said that her promotion to government on Sept. 11 may have been the first stage in her journey to take over from her 75-year- old father when retires.

Certainly in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city and its financial centre, people interpreted her promotion as the start of dynastic succession.

David Smirnov the owner of a small trading business, said that he thought Ms Nazarbayeva would be a good fit for the top job.

“How could such a man have a bad daughter?” he asked, reflecting the popular support for President Nazarbayev. “So much money has been invested into her. She will be better than any other corrupt official, for sure.”

There has no official commentary from the Presidential Palace regarding Ms Nazarbayeva’s promotion.

Nessibeli Kozhakhmetova, a student, held a similar point of view to Mr Smirnov, the business owner.

“She knows from childhood how her father have worked,” she said. “She is better than someone whom we are not familiar with. She is trustworthy and the most reliable of the options.”

But, importantly, while most people told a Bulletin correspondent that they supported Ms Nazarbayeva’s promotion, there were some divergent opinions.

Aleksey, an advertising manager, was walking down a main street. He stopped and said quietly: “She might be a President but there is no trust in either the Presidency or Dariga.”

And KIMEP economics student Kamila Mukushova said Kazakhstan needed a break from the past and the Nazarbayev family’s grip on power.

“If she will be the President, then everything remains the same in the country,” she said. “We will still be dependent on Russia. We need a more open-minded leader.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Tajikistan hosts regional security summit

SEPT. 15 2015, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Leaders from member states of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) travelled to the Tajik capital for their annual summit, with talk of the threat from Islamic extremism dominating the conference.

Security was tight across Dushanbe. Earlier this month twin attacks on police stations, one in Dushanbe and one in a nearby town, killed nearly two dozen people.

The day after the summit, Tajikistan’s Prosecutor-General accused the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) of coordinating the attacks (Sept. 17). The authorities have been putting the IRPT under increased pressure over the past year. Linking it to the attacks will now, almost certainly, mean it will be banned.

At the CSTO summit, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon said the number of young Tajiks lured to join IS in Iraq and Syria is increasing.

“The spectre of emergencies and security threats in the region is not diminishing, and could even grow,” he said. This rhetoric, Western analysts have said, suits the security- focused agenda of Central Asia. Many think it is overstated.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said he will help Central Asia strengthen its southern border against any Taliban incursions.

“Here in Tajikistan you are confronted with problems, with encroachments and attempts to rock the situation, and I would like to say that you can always count on our assistance and support,” media quoted Mr Putin as saying.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)