Category Archives: Uncategorised

Uzbekistan increases state salaries

SEPT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – From Sept.1 government salaries and pensions in Uzbekistan increased by 10%, media reported, another indication that inflation is accelerating across the region.

Uzbek president Islam Karimov ordered 26, ostentatiously to improve the quality of life for ordinary people but in reality to keep up with price inflation in basic foodstuffs, utilities and petrol.

Like the rest of the region, Uzbekistan’s currency has fallen sharply in value and remittance from Russia have roughly halved.

The Uzbek government usually increases salaries and pensions once or twice a year. The previous salary increase of 12% came in December 2014.

As well as boosting salaries, the government is also increasing import duties on major staples ranging from meat and poultry, to dairy and fruits by around 30%. University tuition fees have risen by 15%. Part of the thinking behind the increase in duties is to ring-fence agricultural production in Uzbekistan during the economic downturn.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Investigative journalist sent to jail in Azerbaijan

SEPT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Baku sentenced investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova to 7-1/2 years in prison for various financial crimes, triggering heavy criticism from the West of Azerbaijan’s human rights record and commitment to free speech.

Ismayilova joins a growing list of human rights activists, journalists and opposition supporters who have been sent to prison by the authorities in Azerbaijan over the past few years.

Opponents of President Ilham Aliyev have accused him of effectively purging Azerbaijan of dissidents.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch said: “The outrageous verdict against Khadija Ismayilova shows the Azerbaijani authorities’ willingness to subvert the law to exact revenge against critics.”

This opinion was backed up by other human rights and media agencies as well as the EU, the British government and the United States.

Azerbaijan retorts that the West is trying to organise a coup.

Ismayilova was jailed for tax evasion, embezzlement and abuse of power, almost an exact mirror of the type of wrong-doings she has investigated in various government agencies, and even the presidential family, over the past few years.

Mr Roth of Human Rights Watch said independent observers had been unable to access the courtroom because pro-government supporters had taken all the seating.

“The government gets away with things like this because Azerbaijan has paid no price for throwing one dissident, one human rights activists after another into prison,” he said.

Part of the dilemma for Europe is that it wants to reduce its gas dependency on Russia. This means finding an alternative source of gas and this source of gas is Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani government appears to have gambled that Europe won’t stop building pipelines and negotiating gas contracts despite grumbling about its crackdown on dissidents.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Uzbekistan Airways shuts Kiev office

SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan Airways closed its office in Kiev, due to delays in reinstating flights between the Ukrainian capital and Tashkent. “Our airline has been expecting to receive permission from the Ukrainian aviation authorities since May,” Alisher Abdualiyev, the Uzbek ambassador to Ukraine, told the kapital.ua website. In May 2015, flights between Tashkent and Kiev were discontinued due to the absence of an agreement between the two countries.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Petrol prices to rise in Turkmenistan

SEPT. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Media in Kyrgyzstan quoted reports from north Turkmenistan which said long queues were forming at petrol stations after rumours emerged that prices were going to rise. Petrol prices have risen across Central Asia because of a sharp fall in the value of local currencies.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Inflation in Georgia climbs to 4-year high

SEPT. 3 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Rising food and utilities prices pushed up inflation in August to a year-on-year level of 5.4%, its highest level for four years Geostat, the Georgian statistics agency, said.

Analysts have been warning that the drop in the value of the Georgian lari over the past year would pressure inflation. These concerns appear to have been borne out by the data which has showed a steady increase in prices in Georgia since March.

Geostat said that food prices in Georgia rose by an average of 2% in August and utilities by 4.4%. Importantly dairy products, a staple of the Georgian diet, rose by nearly 10%.

Also, electricity prices rose by 11.4% in August, mainly due to the fall in the value of the lari. Rising electricity prices across the region have triggered discontent, especially in neighbouring Armenia where wide- spread street protests forced the government to ditch most price increases.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

China to increase investment into Tajikistan’s gold mines

SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Chinese Zijin Mining Group Company pledged more investment into Tajikistan’s gold mines, local media reported. Zijin owns a 75% stake in a joint venture with the Tajik government in the development of the Zarafshan gold mine, the largest gold mine in Tajikistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Activists clash with police in Armenia

SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 100 protesters scuffled with police in Yerevan over electricity price rises for businesses. Activists said they believe President Serzh Sargsyan has reneged on his promise to protesters in June to subsidise planned electricity price rises by omitting businesses from the deal.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Azerbaijan jails journalist Khadija Ismayilova

SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Azerbaijan jailed journalist Khadija Ismayilova for various financial crimes. Her supporters have said that the charges were fabricated and that this is just another attempt by the authorities to silence one of their most fierce critics. Although the authorities in Azerbaijan have imprisoned dozens of human rights activists, opposition members and journalists, Ismayilova is the most high profile.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Currencies: Kyrgyz som falls to lowest level in a decade

SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kyrgyz som lost 5.4% of its value on Sept. 1 falling to 66 som to $1, the biggest fall by any currency in Central Asia and the South Caucasus over the past week and the lowest value for the som against the US dollar for at least a decade.

This was also the som’s biggest one-day loss since March 2014. The Kyrgyz government, like the rest of Central Asia, has been battling to defend its currency against a sharp fall in the value of the Russian rouble, still the main driver of regional economic growth.

It’s unclear what pressured the Kyrgyz som to fall so severely but a few days earlier the head of the Central Bank Tolkunbek Abdygulov had said that the currency had dropped by 10.3% in 2015 despite the the government spending nearly $180m to protect its value.

“The National Bank will have enough reserves to avoid sharp fluctuations in the exchange rate of the som. Now the situation on the market is stable. There are no reasons for anxiety and panic,” media quoted Mr Abdygulov as saying on Aug. 25.

His statement and the subsequent fall in the value of the som suggest that the Kyrgyz Central Bank may be struggling to maintain its value.

Across the border in Kazakhstan, the Kazakh tenge has been stable at a level of 242/$1 during the past week, down from the a high of 252/$1 in August. The Kazakh Central Bank’s decision to adopt a new benchmark interest rate policy on Sept. 2, did not appear to have a significant impact on the exchange rate.

Elsewhere in Central Asia, the Tajik somoni and the Uzbek sum remained substantially unchanged. Currencies in the South Caucasus kept their against the US dollar throughout the week, fluctuating by just 1%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Russia blocks Uzbek-bound dairy products

SEPT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia’s health department blocked the transit of 40 tonnes of dairy products from Latvia and Germany from travelling across its territory to Uzbekistan. Reports said the shipment had broken transit rules. European producers have dodged sanctions on Russia by sending products to Uzbekistan which they then send onto Moscow.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)