Category Archives: Uncategorised

Ratings agencies downgrade Armenia

>>Armenia’s economy is closely linked to Russia’s fortunes>>

JAN. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ratings agencies Fitch and Moody’s downgraded Armenia’s bond ratings to negative from stable, another sign that the Armenian economy is in for a turbulent few months.

Fitch said that it expected Armenia’s economy to slip into a recession this year and the deficit to widen.

“Remittances amount to about 15% of GDP and fell by about 30% during the last months of 2014 as 90% of the total come from Russia,” it said in a research note.

Armenia has been hit by the drop in the Russian rouble and the turmoil in Russia’s economy, triggered by a fall in oil prices and sanctions imposed by the West after the Kremlin’s intervention in Ukraine.

Over the past seven months, Armenia’s dram currency has fallen by nearly 20% against the US dollar despite a steady increase in interest rates.

Of course, it’s not just Armenia which is exposed to the drop in Russia’s economy and currency. The rest of Central Asia and the South Caucasus have also been badly hit.

Armenia, though, is particularly closely linked. It is desperately hoping that there will be some improvement in Russia’s economy.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)

Iran and Turkmenistan spar in the Caspian Sea

FEB. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran accused Turkmen coastguards of shooting dead an Iranian fisherman in the Caspian Sea, a potentially dangerous flashpoint in this volatile area.

The English-language Tehran Times said that one of the Iranian fishing boasts was sunk after it came under fire and that one person died.

Perhaps more worrying was the next sentence in the state-owned newspaper.

“According to IRNA, Turkmenistan’s hostile behaviour toward Iran has been increased and the only Shia mosque in Ashgabat is on the verge of destruction,” it reported. IRNA is a state-owned Iranian language news agency.

It sounds as if Iran is spoiling for a fight.

Either way, Turkmenistan’s government immediately denied the accusation that its navy had killed an Iranian sailor. Instead, they said that they had arrested four fishermen for illegal fishing.

This is a curious story, made more curious by the Tehran Times’ line about the only Shia mosque in Ashgabat being under threat.

The Caspian Sea is a sensitive area. It is rich in hydrocarbons and also produces sturgeon whose eggs are sold and eaten as caviar. It is also bordered by five countries — Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan — with their own single minded agendas.

Flashpoints in the Caspian Sea, and bellicose language that accompany them, are worth monitoring.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)

Kazakhs buy the rouble

>>Worries about devaluation drive Kazakhs to the rouble>>

FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — People in Kazakhstan have been buying roubles at surprising rates over the past couple of months.

Exchange bureaus data shows that the demand for the Russian currency increased steadily in November and skyrocketed in December despite the rouble losing value against the Kazakh tenge (Jan. 28).

No official reason has been given for the rise in rouble demand but there are several plausible reasons. A Bulletin correspondent in Almaty said many Kazakhs see the ailing rouble as a cheap currency for cross-border shopping.

Of course, Kazakhs may also be speculating that the rouble is valued too cheaply at the moment and that it will rise in value. This is almost certainly true of its value against the Kazakh tenge.

The Kazakh Central Bank has vowed to avoid another devaluation of the tenge — it cut the value of its currency by 20% last year — but the market, and most people on the streets think that another sudden devaluation is inevitable.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)

Kazakhmys cuts projects

FEB. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhmys, one of the biggest employers in Kazakhstan, said it was stopping work on a handful of side projects and making 2,000 people redundant. Kazakhmys’ main product is copper although it employs thousands more people in support businesses such as coal mining. The news piles more pressure on Kazakhstan’s economy.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)

Russia cuts Uzbek/Turkmen gas orders

FEB. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Alexander Medvedev, vice-chairman of Gazprom, Russia’s gas monopoly, said the company would cut gas it buys from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Mr Medvedev did not specify why Gazprom had cut its orders from Turkmenistan by 60% and from Uzbekistan by 75% but it may be linked to Russia’s economic downturn.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)

Corruption scars Kazakh HIV project

JAN. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Global Fund, a Switzerland-based health organisation, said corrupt suppliers had swindled $5m from an HIV/AIDS awareness project in Kazakhstan. The corruption highlights the extent of the problems facing foreign companies and organisations in Kazakhstan.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015

Gazprom extends control over Kyrgyzstan’s gas

>>Russia pledges new gas infrastructure system>>

JAN. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a trip to Bishkek, Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, said the Russian state-owned gas company would invest $500m into Kyrgyzstan’s gas network system over the next three years.

This is a massive investment by Russia into what is essentially its backyard, especially during these times of economic turbulence. Gas has become a form of diplomacy and control for the Kremlin and it wants to bring Kyrgyzstan closer into its hegemony.

“This is 1.7 times larger than originally planned,” media quoted Mr Miller as saying of the proposed investment plan. “All the planned works will be financed in full.”

Gazprom bought Kyrgyzstan’s gas monopoly for a symbolic $1 in 2013. This year the Kremlin has already earned credit for negotiating a deal between the Uzbek and the Kyrgyz authorities to supply gas to the south of Kyrgyzstan.

And influence over Bishkek is important for Russia. Over the past decade Kyrgyzstan has swung between supporting the West to looking towards the Kremlin. Now that the US military base outside Bishkek has been dismantled (it went last year) the Kremlin has upped its drive to pull Bishkek closer towards it.

Later this year, Kyrgyzstan plans to join the Kremlin-controlled Eurasian Economic Union. It has sold its gas system to Gazprom and has introduced various legislation that apes Russian laws and, many analysts say, curtails personal freedoms.
Russian dominance over Kyrgyzstan is growing.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)

Chinese hunt for shrimps in the Aral Sea

MO’YNOQ/Uzbekistan, FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sagynbai Murzayev is a strong and gentle Soviet-made man in his 70s. He used to be a fisherman in windswept Mo’ynoq, a town in Karakalpakstan which lies on the remote western fringe of Uzbekistan. Now he works several jobs and witnesses the Chinese influx.

Mo’ynoq once lay on the shores of the Aral Sea. This sea, though, shrunk rapidly because a Soviet irrigation system siphoned off its tributaries’ waters to feed giant cotton fields.

Left behind is a lunar desert of white dunes that locals call Aralkum (Aral’s Sands).

Murzayev works at the local museum of natural history and has witnessed the retreat from the beginning. His father was also a fisherman, his mother worked in a fishery. He now gathers most of his earnings by driving foreign guests to the sea shores. Most of the visitors are Chinese.

Since 2006 an energy consortium led by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has been exploring oil and gas deposits below the former seabed.

Although national Uzbek publications boast about Karakalpakstan’s growth as an energy-rich region, operations in the Ustyurt Plateau seem, to Murzayev at least, to proceed at a slow pace. The few Chinese workers camping on the shoreline are mainly after a rather different and rather unusual resource for Central Asia — shrimps.

Unexcited, Murzayev looked at a Chinese trawler coming ashore.

“The indiscriminate pillage of natural resources has already been proved to be detrimental for us,” he said. “We need to bring the sea back to life and not to scavenge its dead body.”

In the distance, the town’s crumbling homes are a symbol of the small economic advantages that this uncertain oil and gas bonanza can bring to the region. And all the while the fading memories of the local fisherman who used to work on the lake grow thinner and thinner.
>>By Gianluca Pardelli
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)

GDP grows in Georgia

JAN. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s GDP grew by nearly 5% in 2014, media reported, a healthy spurt despite pressures from a faltering Russian economy and a drop in global oil prices (Jan. 30).
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)

Kazakh woman jailed for IS propaganda

JAN. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kazakhstan have jailed a woman in the western city of Aktau for spreading audio files online that supported the Islamic extremist group IS. Kazakhstan has become increasingly sensitive to IS propaganda. IS has targeted Central Asia as a recruitment ground.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015