Category Archives: Uncategorised

Turkey invests in Georgian hydropower

JUNE 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Turkish infrastructure company has agreed to fund construction of a new hydro- power dam in Georgia, media reported.

The agreement boosts Georgia- Turkey relations and will also strengthen electricity generation in the country.

Anadolu Tasit Ticaret will spend $80m on building the 51-megawatt Khedula-3 hydro- power plant in the Svaneti region in the Caucasus mountains.

Georgia’s government is a major proponent of developing hydropower and energy minister Kakha Kaladze said that this new development was just part of an ongoing process to boost the sector.

“This is being done for our people and for our country. This is being done for Georgia to be an energy independent country, he said. But it’s not without its controversies.

Hydropower currently produces around 85% of Georgia’s power but with economic and industrial development demand rising, so is demand for power. The tension lies between those who want to develop hydropower, which often means smashing through pristine mountain valleys and destroying villages, and those who want to protect the environment.

The government is still to make a final decision about one of the most controversial hydro- power projects in Georgia, the proposed 200m high dam at Khudoni.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

Armenia’s PM bullish on GDP growth

JUNE 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s economic picture this year is emerging. Its GDP increased by 2.2% in the first quarter of the year compared with 3.1% in January-March 2014. A slight drop, but not as bad as it could be.

On a trip to the city of Artashat, outside Yerevan, PM Hovik Abrahamyan said that he was pleased with the how the data was emerging.

“We have 2.3% (economic activity) growth for the first 4 months which is usually passive,” he said.

“The programs that we are implementing and the laws we are adopting can become the basis by which we will surely have more than 2.3% economic growth. We will do everything to reach 4.1% GD growth tar- get,” he said.

Like the rest of the region, the impact of falling oil prices on Russia’s economy twinned with sanctions have rippled wider and hit the South Caucasus and also Central Asia.

Mr Abrahamyan said Armenia may be able to reach GDP growth of 4.1% this year because of a number of projects in the pipeline. He highlighted increased agriculture activity of 6.6% in the first quarter of the year and a redress on the remittances’ reduction expected from Russia.

The IMF and the World Bank have said that remittances will drop by up to 40%. The Armenian Central Bank said that the figure is likely to be nearer 25% or 30%. And this is really the crux. If remittances fall sharply, GDP will too.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

Azerbaijani police arrested Baku fire culprits

JUNE 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Baku arrested a former city official and three other men for criminal negligence linked to a fire in an apartment block last month which killed at least 15 people, media reported. The fire spread quickly because of flammable padding used to decorate the building.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

Kazakh Tengizchevroil output rises

JUNE 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Oil output at Tengizchevroil, Kazakhstan’s biggest oil producer, rose by 4.4% in Q1 compared to the same period in 2014, Reuters reported quoting its director-general Tim Miller. Chevron owns 50% of Tengizchevroil, ExxonMobil owns 25%, Kazmunaigas owns 20% and Lukoil owns 5%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

Kyrgyz government cuts GDP growth rates

JUNE 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s government has slashed its economic growth forecast for 2015, Reuters reported.

It said that rather than the bullish prediction of growth at 6.2% in 2015, up from 3.6% in 2014 because of increased output at the Kumtor gold mine, growth would actually slow to 2%.

This reduced economic growth rate will also increase the size of its budget deficit, Reuters reported. This will rise to 5.7% of GDP from 3.3%.

Reuters said the new figures had been noted on Kyrgyz government documents.

Kyrgyzstan’s economic woes are shared by other countries across the region. It is strug- gling to deal with the fall-out from a downturn in Russia’s economy triggered by the doublehit of a sharp fall in oil prices around the world and also the impact of sanctions imposed by the West on Russia for its meddling in Ukraine.

Remittances from workers labouring in Russia are one of Kyrgyzstan’s main currency earners. The World Bank has said that this is likely to be down by 40% on 2014.

At a meeting with reporters in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s economy minister Oleg Pankratov explained the severity of the downturn.

“Our main partners are in deep crisis due to the rouble’s plunge … and economic sanc- tions,” she said, according to Reuters.

“Our migrants have started to transfer less cash.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

Syria refugee flow to Armenia

JUNE 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – More and more ethnic Armenian refuges from Syria are fleeing to Armenia, Hranush Hakobyan, minister for diaspora, said. Thousands of Armenians had lived in Syria. Many fled after the start of a civil war. Ms Hakobyan said there were now 13,000 in Armenia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

Spanish company to lease Georgian Alphabet Tower for 1 lari

MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – An unnamed Spanish company is reportedly on the brink of signing a deal to lease the so-called Alphabet Tower in Batumi for 1 lari a year. That’s about 40 cents.

The Alphabet Tower, much like its neighbouring Batumi Tower which houses a ferris wheel halfway up one of its flanks, has become an item of ridicule since it was built in 2011.

It was one of former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s projects to beautify Batumi and yet it has been virtually abandoned since it was completed. And this is important. The current government, headed by the Georgian Dream coalition, despises Mr Saakashvili. It views his projects around Batumi with particular contempt and has already sold the Batumi Tower. Selling off these towers, it appears to think, is a way of pouring more scorn and ridicule on Mr Saakashvili.

Designed and built by a Spanish architect the Georgian alphabet twists and winds its way up the side of the Alpabet Tower. There are 33 letters in the modern Georgian alphabet, but only 31 on the tower. Two letters had been missed.

The tower has never been used the media reported that a lift running to the top floor was out of service. If the Spanish company did take the lease on the tower, and it reportedly wants to put a restaurant on the top floor, it would have to spend thousands of dollars repairing it.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

EBRD lowers Uzbekistan’s growth rate

JUNE 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) cut its growth rate estimate for GDP in 2015 in Uzbekistan to 7% from an earlier prediction of 7.8%. The falling value of the rouble and a drop in global oil prices have hit growth rates across the region.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

Turkmenistan to increase electricity exports

MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has agreed to increase the amount of electricity it supplies to Afghanistan by four times over the next five years, media reported quoting senior officials. Turkmenistan has become an increasingly important regional power and energy supplier.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)

Georgia’s GDP growth rate stumbles

MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s economy by the end of April was just 0.9% larger than a year earlier, the Georgian national statistics agency said. Georgia and the rest of the region are coping with the twin impact of a drop in the value of the Russian rouble and a decline in oil prices.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)