FEB. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s cotton exports, an important foreign currency earner, grew by 7% in January compared to a year earlier, local media reported. The increase bucks a trend of falling cotton exports from Tajikistan over the past few years. Extra revenue from the exports though are tempered by a global drop in cotton prices.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015
FEB. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan accused the government of cracking down on its activities in the build-up to a parliamentary election on March 1. The party’s chairman, Muhiddin Kabiri, told the AFP news agency that the party was facing “total pressure”.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Central Bank slashed the value of its manat currency by a third overnight, a sudden move that took businesses and ordinary Azerbaijanis by surprise.
Previously Azerbaijani officials had said that they would release the manat from its dollar peg, suggesting only a gradual devaluation to adjust to a sharp decline in the Russian rouble.
They have now justified the sudden devaluation by saying that they had little choice but to act in the face of a collapse in oil prices and economic turbulence in Russia.
“This decision was made in order to support diversification of Azerbaijan’s economy, strengthen its international compatibility and export potential as well as to provide balance of payments sustainability,” the Central Bank said in a statement.
On the streets of Azerbaijan’s towns, though, the devaluation was less generously viewed.
Veli, 29, a small business owner in Guba, a northern city, told a Bulletin correspondent that he was in shock.
“I believed the government. I kept my savings in the manat,” he said. “I lost third of my savings. It’s painful. It’s theft by the government.”
He said that he had no choice but to increase the price of the electronic goods he was selling in his shop — fuelling rising inflation.
Sahiba, a mother of two young children living in the city of Gazakh on the western border with Georgia echoed these sentiments. Her husband is a government official but has had his pay cut already this year.
“We’ve got a mortgage,” she said. “I don’t know what we’ll do.”
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan and the main opposition party’s leader, Gagik Tsarukyan, are embroiled in an increasingly bitter and acrimonious row.
Parliamentarians aligned to the Prosperous Armenia party walked out of the national assembly to protest against a government crackdown on Mr Tsarukyan.
They accuse Mr Sargsyan of launching a tax investigation on Mr Tsarukyan for purely vindictive reasons. The argument appears to have started at the beginning of the month with Mr Sargsyan describing the thick-set Mr Tsarukyan as “evil” after he accused the governing Republican Party of complicity in the abduction and beating of an Armenian civil rights protester.
In retaliation for ordering the tax investigation, Mr Tsarukyan called for demonstrations against the government on Feb 20.
The demonstrations didn’t materialise but the image of mainstream politics in Armenia has been tarnished.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kyrgyz government said it was once again putting its second largest gold mine, Jerooy, up for sale by tender despite a failed attempt to sell it in 2013 for $300m. The Jerooy mine is also the subject of a $549m arbitration suit filed by its former owners, the Kazakh investment fund Visor Holdings.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s president Giorgi Margvelashvili invited his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko to visit Tbilisi, a show of support for Ukraine’s pro-West government in their battle with Russia-backed rebels. Georgia has been trying to mend damaged relations with Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Industrial activity in Kazakhstan will decline by 0.3% this year to its worst level in 17 years, media reported quoting the economy ministry. The drop in industrial activity is symptomatic of the overall slowdown in Kazakhstan’s economy in the past 12 months.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iranian president Hassan Rouhani will fly to Ashgabat to meet with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, media reported quoting a senior Iranian official as saying. Reports didn’t give a precise date for the visit, although it is expected at the end of February or in March.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The falling rouble has persuaded up to half of St Petersburg’s Central Asian casual work force to return home, the AFP news agency reported.
St Petersburg’s deputy governor, Igor Albin, reportedly said that 50% of the snow sweepers, normally from Central Asia, had left the city.
AFP’s correspondent in St Petersburg directly quoted the head of a snow sweeping company who gave similar insight, although with a lower percentage heading home.
“Almost 30% of the workers who left to spend New Year’s as usual with their families in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan have not come back,” he said.
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are most vulnerable to this trend. Tajikistan holds the dubious position as the country that is most reliant on remittances. These make up about 50% of its total GDP.
The Tajik Central Bank has tried to prop up its currency against the falling Russian rouble although it has warned that inflation is creeping up.
In Dushanbe, an immigration official told AFP that only half the number of Tajiks were leaving to take jobs abroad this year, compared to the same period in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan increased gold production in 2014 by 4.1% to 102 tonnes, media reported quoting the US Geological Survey. Gold is an important source of foreign cash for the Uzbek government. Uzbekistan is now the seventh largest gold producer in the world.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015
