Category Archives: Uncategorised

Kazakhstan returning to the bond market

OCT. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan issued its first US-dollar sovereign debt since 2000 to finance state investments and contain a growing budget deficit.

The government hired Citibank, HSBC and JP Morgan to arrange the deal, which attracted large demand from investors, who purchased $2.5b in 10- and 30-year fixed- income securities.

After a year of significant changes in the banking sector and a 20% currency devaluation, Kazakhstan is not the safest country for financial speculation but analysts talked up the country’s strengths.

“The ministry of finance raised a similar sum in the local market last year, but this time the operation was denominated in dollars which attracted investors in a market hungry for yields,” Sabina Amangeldi, senior analyst at Halyk Finance in Almaty, told the Conway Bulletin.

“The position of the government is reassuring since the country has a net creditor position. The compliance with ICMA’s (nternational Capital Market Association) test clauses demonstrated Kazakhstan’s good will with respect with the global investment community.”

Kazakhstan seems to have seized perhaps the last moment to issue sovereign debt coupons, since the policy of tapering and a possible raise of the current minimal interest rates by the US Treasury in Washington would see US dollars move from emerging markets and back to the United States.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kashagan re-start delayed in Kazakhstan

OCT. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Media reports suggested that Kazakhstan’s headline oil producing project, the Kashagan site in the Caspian Sea, will not start production until 2017. Kazakh officials have said that they expect the project to start production in 2016 but unnamed insiders have said this is unlikely.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kyrgyz MPs prepare anti-gay laws

OCT. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Controversial anti-gay legislation carbon-copied from Russia, is sailing through parliamentary reviews in Kyrgyzstan, triggering concerns about Moscow’s influence over Bishkek.

Parliament’s committee for human rights accepted the bill last week and the education committee was also expected to approve it. Advocates say the law, which will fine or jail citizens promoting “a positive relationship to homosexuality” in the media or around children, is designed to preserve traditional family values.

The law and its justification bear a strong resemblance to one passed in Russia in the summer of last year. Another bill being considered by the parliament, on recognising NGOs as foreign agents, echoes legislation voted through Russia’s State Duma in 2012.

Critics argue that parliamentarians are courting Russia’s favour, important to any politician with serious ambitions in Kyrgyzstan.

Writing in the New York Times, Masha Gessen, a former editor of RFE/RL’s Russian service said pro-Russian publications have infiltrated the Kyrgyz media space over the past few years and that Kyrgyzstan was a perfect lab rat. “It is small and poor and extremely susceptible to Russian pressure,” she wrote.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Earthquake hits Azerbaijan, no casualties

OCT. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An earthquake measuring 6 magnitude on the Richter Scale hit north- central Azerbaijan, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). It was recorded at a relatively deep 5km. There were no fatalities.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Uzbek President to visit Czech Rep

OCT. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov will visit Prague next year, the head of the Czech presidential administration told media. Mr Karimov had cancelled a trip to Prague earlier this year after Czech ministers, worried about Uzbekistan’s human rights record, refused to meet him.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Uzbek police arrested top Tashkent customs boss

OCT. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek police arrested the head of Tashkent’s customs department, Colonel Sirojiddin Gulmanov, and his deputies for corruption, media reported, a move linked to a drive by the National Security Service (NSS) to assert control.

Earlier this year around 100 officers at the customs department were arrested and accused of corruption. Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, has accused the NSS of being behind her own arrest and various plots to grab power.

An official from the state customs department, though, denied that the arrests of Colonel Gulmanov and his deputies was linked to any larger power play.

“During the investigation, cases of extortion for bribes from people and goods crossing frontiers (were discovered,” he said.

Uzbekistan is in a state of flux. Ms Karimova is under house arrest and media has reported that she will be charged with various economic crimes. Her colleagues have already been charged, found guilty and imprisoned.

She had been tipped to become the next president. Instead, Ms Karimova appears to have lost out in a year- long battle for control against the NSS.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Europe warns Georgia against seeking revenge through courts

OCT. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s allies have given it another warning not to pursue political revenge through the courts.

This time the warning came from the European Parliament.

“Georgia will have to overcome the antagonism, polarisation and sense of revenge still present in order to continue its democratic development,” the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said, according to a Reuters report, in a resolution on Georgia.

The US and other European powers have previously handed out similar warnings.

Since relinquishing power last year, Mr Saakashvili has lived in New York. He has been charged in absentia with various misdemeanours. Other members of his cabinet have been charged and found guilty.

There is no love lost between the former government of Mr Saakashvili and the current government led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. The two leaders hate each other.

Tension is, it appears, beginning to bubble over in Tbilisi over the issue too.

News reports from the Georgian capital said that extra police have been deployed around the centre of the city to stop rival gangs of youth from clashing.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kazakh President gives views on Gorbachev

OCT. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has had a ringside view on some of history’s most important moments. This includes the collapse of the Soviet Union and the final years of Mikhail Gorbachev’s time in power.

And, for perhaps the first time, Mr Nazarbayev gave his views on Mr Gorbachev to a correspondent from the tengrinews.kz website.

“I had to work in the system during the Soviet period and I was one of the critics of Gorbachev’s reforms, who believed that socialism could be corrected and we could move on,” he said.

“He had the expression of ‘socialism with a human face’ but no one understood what this was. Probably he wanted something close to a market economy. But if public companies are controlled by corporate market principles, the problem, as you see, is successfully solved.”

Rather than giving a historical insight of working under Mr Gorbachev, this statement may have been Mr Nazarbayev’s real point. He wanted to promote the idea of strong state- owned companies working in a market economy and also highlight the example of China, now an important ally of Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kazakhstan strives for petrol self-sufficiency

OCT. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Repairs and upgrades to Kazakhstan’s three oil refineries should mean that by 2016 or 2017 the country is self-sufficient in petrol, Kazakh energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said in comments to parliament. Kazakhstan’s energy ministry has ruled out building a fourth oil refinery to meet demand.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Uzbekistan to checkup returning migrants

OCT. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek migrants returning home from work overseas will now be required to fill out a questionnaire, media reported.The government has said it wants to find out how much migrants have been earning but analysts have said the questionnaire is linked to concern that Uzbeks have been joining the so called Islamic State group in Syria.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)