SEPT. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Under an amnesty declared earlier this year by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, people can legalise companies and cash held offshore without being taxed over the next 12 months, media reported. Mr Nazarbayev wants to bring an estimated $10b into the economy through the amnesty.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian officials have said that they will ask for NATO membership at its summit in Wales starting on Sept. 4, media reported. Fighting in Ukraine and the expansion of NATO is top of the agenda at the meeting in Wales. Georgia has been pushing for NATO membership for the last few years.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
ALMATY/Kazakhstan, SEPT. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The conversation, and the coffee, flowed freely in this café in the centre of Kazakhstan’s financial capital that is popular with students and intelligentsia types. The language, too, was fluid and the speakers switch causally between Kazakh and English.
Amantai, a 21-year old student, had been listening to the conversation.
“I’ve heard you guys speak interchangeably in Kazakh and English,” he said. “You haven’t used a single word of Russian.”
Russian didn’t have a place at this table of young, educated Kazakhs. In the wider context, as Kazakhs grow more aware of their statehood and less attached to the notion of the Soviet Union, the Russian language is being displaced.
Amantai was from a village outside of Almaty. He had moved to study economics at the Kazakh- British Technical University. He had studied hard to reach the level of English that was required to enroll.
Even though for Amantai Kazakh was not necessary to study economics he still preferred to use it in public over Russian.
Another of the young Kazakh men sitting around the table explained.
“It’s up to the new generation to turn our mother tongue into a language that can be spoken in every instance of one’s life,” he said.
A decade ago this scene would not have unfolded in Almaty. Until recently Russian dominated Kazakhstan’s business and political elite. Kazakh was spoken just by villagers and not in the cities.
That, though, has changed with President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s various nation building schemes and with the influx of people to Almaty and other cities.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – For the full year to end-July, its grew by 7.2%, a rise from 6.2% for the 12 months to the end of June, Georgia’s statistics agency said.
This growth far outstrips other countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Georgia is less reliant on Russia’s economy, which has been faltering on sanctions imposed on it since fighting broke out in Ukraine.
Instead, Georgia is increasingly looking to the European Union for economic growth. This month it will receive another boost when its accession into a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the EU comes into force. This will give it products — especially agriculture products, wine and water — a boost in Europe.
To coincide with this, Moody’s the ratings agency increased Georgia’s outlook to one notch below investment grade.
“We hope to see new businesses oriented on exporting their goods to the EU market and this, in turn, will lead to the diversification and growth of exports,” Mikheil Janelidze, deputy minister for the economy and sustainable development, told eurasiaNet.org.
In comparison, Armenia’s economy is faltering because of its over-reliance on Russia. Officials there are beginning to sound increasingly worried, also, about its impending admission to the Russia-led Customs Union.
In Central Asia, too, economies are under increasing pressure because of their over reliance on Russia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz PM Djoomart Otorbayev approved a long list of bills and laws to be passed through parliament in order for Kyrgyzstan to become a member of the Russia-led Customs Union this year. The list is further evidence that Kyrgyzstan is committed to joining the group.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – On Independence Day, people in Bishkek crammed into cinemas to watch a film geared towards nation-building.
The film’s organisers think the film has a shot at the Best Foreign Film Category at the Oscars. Kurmandjan Datka, Queen of the Mountains received $1.5m from the threadbare republican budget and was part-organised by nationalist MP, Zhyldyz Zholdosheva.
The Kyrgyz-language picture, telling the story of a female clan ruler during the time of the Russian empire, was generally well received, although one viewer, 21-year old Maxat Dukenbayev, said it was some way short of Nomad, a Kazakh state-made epic with 25 times Kurmanjan Datka’s budget and featuring B-List Hollywood actors.
“That didn’t come close to an Oscar,” he said, standing outside Bishkek’s October Cinema.
Not that Nomad did either.
Still, Zholdosheva, who gained a reputation as an outspoken nationalist in the aftermath of ethnic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in 2010 declared herself ready to win an Oscar.
Elsewhere, on a grassy stretch outside Bishkek’s Panfilov Park, scores of Kyrgyz families grilled skewered kebabs and took in national beer.
Kyrgyz films celebrating its independence, seemingly, are not for everyone.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Petrol stations across Uzbekistan are closing because of a lack of fuel supplies, media reported. Media has been reporting for some time that fuel supplies in Uzbekistan have been low. The government has also said that it is no longer able to subsidise petrol causing prices to rise, especially around Tashkent.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s economy grew by only 2.3% in the second quarter of this year compared to a year earlier, the national statistics agency reported.
The low growth underscores concerns about the Armenian economy. In August, the Central Bank cut its full year growth forecast to between 3.6% and 4.2% from 4.1% and 4.8% because of the impact of sanctions on Russia’s economy. The health of the Russian economy is vital to Armenia.
Other international economic organisations have followed and warned that economic growth in 2014 will be lower than growth in 2013.
This is, of course, worrying for Armenian officials who are looking to boost the economy. The danger for Armenia is that it’s trapped in having to follow Russia.
Armenia is surrounded by enemies, mainly Turkey and Azerbaijan, and looks to Russia for support but with the Russian economy increasingly fragile because of sanctions this is dangerous.
And Armenia appears destined to join the Russia-led Customs Union later this year. These are definitely difficult times for Armenia’s policymakers.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Anti-corruption lobby group Transparency International (TI) said it is having problems receiving funding from USAID, the US government aid agency, through an Azerbaijani bank, media reported. TI has been critical of corruption in Azerbaijan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Regions across Uzbekistan have started work on a government edict to try and lure the thousands of Uzbeks working abroad back home, even though the economy is looking decidedly dodgy and the chances of full time employment are low.
Uznews.net, an Uzbek opposition website, reported that Samarkand, the second largest city in the country, has proposed all migrants who return will get given a job.
“I witnessed people like myself being forced to live a nomadic life in dirty conditions, without rights in a foreign land,” the website reported one Samarkand resident as saying in a propaganda drive.
“If we were to work as hard at home as we work in Russia, we would make good money.”
The drive to persuade migrants to return to Uzbekistan apparently came in July from Uzbek PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
It also coincided with news that Russia was going to make it more difficult for migrants to enter and also that the sanctions imposed on Russia since fighting in Ukraine started has reduced demand for casual migrant workers. This may have dampened demand for migrants from Central Asia who would typically do the cleaning and building jobs around Moscow and other large Russian cities.
Even so, Uzbekistan relies heavily on remittances from workers based in Russia and working on a campaign to encourage them back home is likely to be counter- productive.
Uzbekistan has plenty of infrastructure of its own to deal with, including crumbling road, rail and power networks, so, possibly, calling on more people to move back to Uzbekistan is counter productive.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
