NOV. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — French pharmaceuticals company Sanofi entered a partnership with Uzbek state-owned Uzfarmsanoat to produce medicines in the country, official media reported. The Uzbek ministries of health and of international trade said that the deal will focus on the production and circulation of flu vaccines.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank agreed to give a $120m loan to Uzbekistan to improve water supply in the peripheral districts of the Tashkent region. The districts of Kibray and Zangiota, outside of Tashkent, have been identified as potential industrial hubs and the government plans to establish a special economic zone in Zangiota. Clean water supply and water management have been chronically overlooked in peripheral regions in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A decorative bridge linking two pavilions in Kazakhstan’s headline EXPO-2017 project collapsed, only a few months before the exhibition is scheduled to open. Media reported that nobody was injured, unlike Kazakh pride. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has set much store in using EXPO-2017 to promote the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In another round of quickfire diplomacy by Uzbekistan, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi travelled to Tashkent to meet acting president Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Mr Mirziyoyev has been acting president since the death of Islam Karimov in September and is all but certain to become the full-time president after a presidential election next month.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ahead of a planned IPO in Moscow, Russian energy company Russneft said it will add oil and gas assets in Azerbaijan to its balance sheet in 2017. The 15b cubic metres of gas and 11.2m tonnes of oil holdings in Azerbaijan were owned by Global Energy Azerbaijan. Russian billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev owns a majority share in Russneft and owned Global Energy Azerbaijan before it was bought by Russneft in 2014. Oil trading giant Glencore owns a minority stake in Russneft.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
TBILISI, NOV. 15 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian economy minister Dimitry Kumsishvili said compulsory vehicle maintenance and emissions inspections will resume from Jan. 1 2018, after a gap of 14 years, a move aimed at improving the safety of Georgian roads and meeting EU standards.
Mandatory vehicle inspection was abolished in 2004 due to its ineffectiveness and vulnerability to corruption, a reflection, perhaps, of Georgia’s chaotic business and social scene in the years after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
Mr Kumsishvili said he wanted to attract foreign companies with experience to take on the challenge of running and monitoring an annual vehicle safety scheme and has invited companies with at least 15 years experience in Europe to apply by Dec. 8 to run the scheme.
Mikheil Khmaladze, the director of the Land Transport Agency, which sits within the economy ministry, told The Conway Bulletin that Georgia needed a company with experience if it was going to make a success of the project.
“We might know how to do this in theory but we lack the practical experience. The international company will be a consultant and will advise us on what to do. There is a lot of risk of corruption in this field,” he said in an interview.
The winner of the tender will be given a two-year contract starting on Jan. 1 2017.
Inspections will be conducted throughout the country by local businesses. A maximum price per inspection will be set and a national database, where all the data regarding will be entered, raked over and inspected for transparency.
The reintroduction of a vehicle inspection scheme was a requirement stipulated by the Georgia-EU
Association Agreement requirement. Georgia wants to join the EU.
Environmentalists have also said that the scheme is needed to cut pollutants.
Nino Shavgulidze, Chief of Party of Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN), said that cars were the biggest pollutants in Tbilisi.
“Statistics shows that of the more than 1m cars running in Georgia, a majority are more than 10 years old. Most of these vehicles do not have catalytic converters, are very poorly maintained, and emit pollutants that are dangerous for human health,” she said.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
ALMATY, NOV. 15 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s largest lenders, Halyk Bank and Qazkom, are in talks to merge and create a super- sized bank with strong links to the Kazakh elite that would dwarf its rivals, according to sources quoted by Reuters.
Reuters quoted two anonymous sources, who both confirmed that talks were under way and that the merger could be agreed after Halyk redeems a $638m Eurobond in May 2017.
Importantly, one of the sources said that the idea behind the merger traces all the way up to the presidential family.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s daughter Dinara and her husband Timur Kulibayev coown Halyk Bank. Kenes Rakishev, son-in-law of Mr Nazarbayev’s close ally Imangali Tasmagambetov, owns Qazkom. Mr Tasmagambetov is minister of defence.
Qazkom which rebranded last month from Kazkommertsbank, gave a guarded denial that a merger was about to happen. Halyk Bank did not comment.
“Responding to recent rumours, I can say that Qazkom has neither made nor received offers regarding a merger with Halyk Bank,” Qazkom’s press officer, Sergei Chikin, told media
A merger would form a banking superpower in Kazakhstan, four times larger than its biggest competitor, Tsesnabank, owned by Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, head of the Presidential Administration. Analysts, though, are skeptical at the prospects of a merger, which would create a bank with a 40% of the loans market.
“Even if the talks are proved true, the Central Bank is unlikely to allow a merger that would monopolise the market,” Rasul Rysmambetov, director of the Public Fund Financial Freedom, told the Inform-Kazakhstan news agency.
In the past two years, both Qazkom and Halyk have cleaned up their toxic assets, which built up during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/9. Qazkom had also bought Kazakhstan’s once-largest lender BTA Bank, now riddled with non- performing loans. It also changed ownership, with Mr Rakishev sidelining founder Nurzhan Subkhanberdin.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation said it started construction on a section of the East-West gas pipeline, from Tsiteli Khidi on the border with Azerbaijan to Gardabani. The company said it will invest 4.5m lari ($1.4m) to complete the 20km section. Georgia ordered a general overhaul of the 450km Soviet-era pipeline from the border with Azerbaijan to the Black Sea port of Poti. State-owned Partnership Fund is the only shareholder.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan released 1,277 inmates from its prisons in an amnesty designated to celebrate both the 25th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union and also the 100th anniversary of an uprising against imperial tsarist forces. The pan-Central Asia rebellion of 1916 was triggered by a decree from the Tsar to mobilise men to fight for Russian forces in the First World War. Russian soldiers repressed the rebellion within a year, killing thousands of people. Different governments have interpreted the uprisings through different lenses. The Soviet Union saw the uprisings as a class struggle. The newly independent countries of Central Asia frame them as national-liberation movements.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EBRD and the EU will expand their programme to support improvements in Kyrgyzstan’s energy efficiency with a $45m loan. The new credit line seeks to boost energy efficiency, particularly for water usage, for Kyrgyz businesses and households.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
