Category Archives: Uncategorised

Banks to keep assets in Kazakh tenge

SEPT. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Central Bank said that it would ban domestic banks from keeping most of its cash overseas from next year.

The announcement is another move aimed at strengthening the local banking sector.

Kairat Kelimbetov, the Central Bank chief, said that banks currently kept most of their assets in foreign currency, undermining the tenge.

“We have taken appropriate action. Firstly, limiting the ability to work with derivative financial instruments at 30 per cent on the balance. Roughly speaking, not allowing to play with currency derivatives,” he said, according to the media.

One of the biggest challenges facing the Kazakh Central Bank currently is trying to stop a slide in the value of the tenge. It has already had to devalue the national currency by 20% earlier this year and has come under sustained pressure to devalue again.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)

Turkmenistan purchased sniper rifles

SEPT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – South African parliamentarians have questioned why its government sold 50 sniper rifles to Turkmenistan earlier this year, media reported. Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier reportedly quoted from a Human Rights Watch report calling Turkmenistan one of the most repressive countries in the world.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)

Gas price in North Kyrgyzstan to drop

SEPT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The price of gas in north Kyrgyzstan will drop by up to 40% because of extra supplies, the head of Gazprom, now owners of Kyrgyzgaz, Alexei Miller said according to media. Although Mr Millar’s comments will be welcomed in the north, caution should be added. The dangerous north-south divide in Kyrgystan may be increasing.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)

Georgia takes another step towards NATO

SEPT. 4-5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – NATO took, yet another, tentative step towards admitting Georgia to its club at its conference in Cardiff.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish head of the US-led military group, said that a substantive package had been drawn up to help aspiring members join.

“Each aspirant has work to do in different areas and we will give them support they need,” he said. “We agreed on substantive package of measures for Georgia that will help Georgia advance in its preparations towards membership of NATO.”

This is good news for Georgia, and probably as good as it could realistically have expected. Ukraine is another country that wants to join NATO, as well as Australia, a more easy country for NATO to accept.

The 28-member NATO also agreed to boost Georgia’s military defences.

Georgia fought a brief war with Russia in 2008 and is dealing with two frozen conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The problem for the NATO member states is that they want to show a strong face against Russian aggression in the former Soviet Union but they also want to avoid inheriting a load of problems that could well drag them into somebody else’s war.

All-in-all, the NATO summit probably lived up to expectations from Georgia.

“We will have very important steps taken in regard of NATO standards by the next summit (in Poland in 2016),” said Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili.

It remains to be seen if Mr Margvelashvili is being realistic or just optimistic.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)

Uzbekistan invests in cotton

SEPT. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s state-run cotton company will spend $1b building its own cotton processing plant, media quoted a senior official as saying. Uzbekistan wants to double its cotton processing capacity. Human rights workers have accused Uzbekistan of suing slave labour to pick its cotton harvest.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)

Uzbekistan passed new media laws

SEPT. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan have passed a law restricting articles that bloggers can publish online. The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported bloggers cannot publish stories that defame the honour of individuals. Uzbekistan has one of the world’s tightest media laws.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)

Council of Europe criticise Azerbaijan

SEPT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an email interview with the US-funded Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, the Council of Europe’s human rights chief, Nils Muiznieks, said the recent arrests of journalists and rights workers were unacceptable.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)

Hailing a London taxi in Baku

BAKU/Azerbaijan, SEPT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – — People hailing a taxi Baku, Azerbaijan’s increasingly glitzy capital, will be forgiven for not realising the link with Coventry, an industrial city in the middle of England.

Coventry is the headquarters of the London Taxi Company which makes the world famous London black cabs. Azerbaijan ordered 1,000 of the cabs ahead of Eurovision song contest in 2012. Today, the purple, rather than black cabs, can be seen lining Baku’s smarter streets.

In a country where corruption is rife, the London cabs — which run on a reliable meter just like in the UK — are proving popular.

Transparent clear pricing is key in a market where unlicensed cabs charge on a whim. Baku Taxi Company who look after the taxis, is also obtaining advice on driver training.

Outside Baku’s new luxury hotels, these purple — this was apparently Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev’s colour choice — cabs line up for custom, nearly all of them carrying the flame and wing emblem of Baku’s 2015 European Games on their sides.

The inaugural European Games is another ploy by the Azerbaijani authorities to rebrand and attract international attention for the right reasons.

Whereas locals know how to barter with local, unlicensed cabs, visitors and international guests staying in the more upmarket hotels don’t, or at least they prefer not to.

Instead the familiar surroundings of the London cabs suits them better. For locals with the cash, there is prestige in hailing a cab and arriving in these smart novelty taxis.

Others, though, are sceptical. The bellboy at the JW Marriott hotel implied it was simply tokenism that appealed most.

“They are unique here and are just not something that have ever been offered in Baku before,” he said. Perhaps, but they still appear both popular and here to stay.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)

China invests in Kyrgyz army

SEPT. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – China pledged to invest $16m in Kyrgyzstan’s, a move to shore up its support in Bishkek, media reported. Much of the cash will be used to build officers’ quarters in Bishkek. China has invested heavily in militaries around Central Asia over the past few years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)

Kazakh soldiers prepare for UN ops

SEPT. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s military has chosen 20 soldiers to travel to Haiti, Western Sahara, Ivory Coast and Liberia on UN missions, media reported. These are the first UN missions that Kazakhstan has supported. They are designed to support its candidature to win a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)