DEC. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF cut Kazakhstan’s growth rate for 2014 to 4.3% from 4.6% because of a slump in oil prices and the downturn in Russia’s sanction-hit economy. It also said Kazakhstan needed to cut more of its non-performing loans (NPLs) from its banking sector. Kazakhstan has one of the highest proportions of NPLs in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The consortium developing the Karachaganak oil and gas site (KPO) in west Kazakhstan denied that a gas leak at its plant poisoned 20 children and three teachers at a school in a nearby village.
Ambulances rushed the children and teachers to hospital after they suddenly fainted on Nov. 28.
KPO made the statement after Kazakh media widely quoted the Prosecutor-General for Kazakhstan’s western region, Serik Karamanov, saying that there had been a brief gas leak the day before the mass fainting at the Karachaganak site only a few kilometres away from the village.
The KPO statement said: “A mobile environmental monitoring station has also been despatched to Berezovka village and has reported no exceedances above the official Maximum Permissible Concentration limits.”
Whether the Kazakh authorities agree, remains to be seen.
Mr Karamanov was clear about what he thought may have been the cause of the poisoning.
“It has been established that at 14:19 on November 27 at the gas-processing complex of KPO, there occurred a discharge of condensate for a period of two minutes,” he said according to local media reports.
The incident is a reminder of the tension at local levels between the foreign-led projects in the energy sector and local communities who accuse them of not doing enough to protect their environment.
Karachaganak is important to Kazakhstan. It is considered one of the country’s most successful projects, and produces around 40% of Kazakhstan’s gas and 13% of its oil. Britain’s BG Group and Italy’s ENI own a 29.5% stake each, Chevron owns 18%, Russia’s Lukoil owns 13.5% and the Kazakh state oil and gas company, KazMunaiGas owns 10%.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian lari and the Armenian dram have fallen sharply against the US dollar. The lari hit its lowest level for 10 years and the dram its lowest level since 2006. The root cause of the collapse of the currencies is the weakening of Russia’s economy because of a collapse in oil prices and Western- imposed sanctions.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Baku arrested Khadija Ismayilova, one of Azerbaijan’s most prominent investigative journalists, and sent her to two months pre-trial detention.
Ms Ismayilova is accused of goading another journalist into committing suicide. She and her supporters have denied the charges.
Ms Ismayilova has a high profile in Azerbaijan for several reasons. She hosts a radio show for the local language station of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, she is a vocal critic of the government and has published various articles alleging corruption against the authorities and she was also at the centre of what she described as a sex sting nearly three years ago.
In the sex sting, videos of her having sex where posted online. They had been taken from inside her house. She again accused the authorities of trying to frame her.
Europe and the United States have voiced their concerns, increasingly loudly, about a freedom of speech clampdown in Azerbaijan. The charges against Ms Ismayilova are another indication of this, they said.
And on the streets of Baku, the atmosphere was tense. People were, generally, afraid to discuss the case.
If they did discuss it, they were clear that they thought Ms Ismayilova’s criticism of the authorities had been the trigger for her detention.
Rauf, 24, the owner of a small business, told a Conway Bulletin correspondent: “Certainly it’s because of her steady critical position against government officials.”
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prosecutors in Tajikistan said they had arrested 46 men who were planning to travel to Syria to fight for the radical group Islamic State, media reported. Officials in Tajikistan have previously said that 300 Tajiks are fighting with Islamic State.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alongside Armenia, Kyrgyzstan will finally join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union in 2015 despite few analysts deeming it ready or suited to full membership.
Bishkek will sign accession documents on Dec. 23, although it could be May before it adopts the protectionist taxes slapped on goods from outside the union, Kyrgyz PM Djoomart Otorbayev told journalists.
Eurasian Economic Union officials have even said they will allow Chinese goods “for domestic consumption” to enter Kyrgyzstan according to pre-existing Kyrgyz tariffs for an unspecified period of time, a concession that suggests other members view Kyrgyzstan’s membership as symbolic.
Kyrgyzstan first agreed in 2010 to enter a trade bloc with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan — the current members of the Customs Union which will morph into the Eurasian Economic Union next year — so it has been a long wait.
But Kyrgyzstan has an economy a tenth the size of Belarus’, an unresolved row over ownership of the Kumtor gold mine, its single largest industrial unit, and worries about rising inflation. This makes it a potential weak link.
Arkady Gladilov, editor of local analytical website polit.kg noted that Kyrgyzstan has had three prime ministers in the time it has been committed to joining the bloc. He said the government may have been dragging its feet over Eurasian Economic Union accession.
“Russia is facing a difficult time with sanctions, and Kyrgyzstan’s own picture is far from rosy. If I were them, I would probably do the same in their position,” he told the Conway Bulletin.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an effort to shore up support in the former Soviet Union, Russian president Vladimir Putin flew to Uzbekistan, where he will offer the carrot of improved economic ties and debt cancellation.
Russian media said that Mr Putin will write off Uzbekistan’s $890m debt and also look to increase both energy imports from Uzbekistan and the import of agriculture machinery.
Uzbekistan and Russia have a lukewarm relationship. Uzbek president Islam Karimov is famously coy about his dealings with other former Soviet states. He has kept Uzbekistan away from the Kremlin-led Customs Union, which will morph into the Eurasian Economic Union next year, but is a keen member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security-economy group that is led by Beijing and Moscow.
With NATO and the West withdrawing from Afghanistan and Central Asia, perhaps Mr Karimov has decided to ally himself closer to Russia. Russia, under pressure in the West, needs all the friends it can currently muster.
Another area that Russia and Uzbekistan have been working on is labour migrants.
In November, the two countries agreed to draft a bilateral agreement to regulate Uzbek labour migrants’ economic activities in Russia.
The Uzbek authorities have previously preferred to play down labour migration but the reality is that remittances and labour migration have become a major part of Uzbekistan’s economy. In 2013, estimates said that 3m Uzbeks worked in Russia, sending home a total of $6.5b.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan plans to sell 200,000 tonnes of flour on the international market, media reported, part of its strategy to diversify its exports away from just oil and gas. Importantly, the sale may also help other Central Asian and South Caucasus countries suppress rising bread prices
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a reminder of the Kazakh car-making boom over the past few years, French manufacturer Citroen- Peugeot said it had entered into a joint-venture to produce its models at the SaryarkaAvtoProm plant in Kostanay in north Kazakhstan. Many Western car-makers are already producing cars in Kostanay.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Forum 18, a news agency based in Oslo focused on promoting religious freedom, reported that Uzbekistan has been using state media to publish articles against people who practise beliefs that it doesn’t agree with. Human rights organisations regularly criticise Uzbekistan for its poor human rights record.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
