Category Archives: Uncategorised

Georgian capital hotel boom given another lift as Hilton prepares to open

TBILISI, NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — US-based hotel chain Hilton will finally open a new $31m four-star hotel in Tbilisi next year, its first in the Georgian capital, adding much-needed extra bedrooms in Georgia where both tourist and business visits are rising steadily.

The 14-storey Hilton Garden Inn hotel, which will open a few months behind schedule, will hold 165 rooms and be situated towards the western end of Tbilisi, an area which has become a hub for Georgia’s professional businesses and for many Western companies working in the country.

Hilton, which already owns a hotel in Georgia’s Black Sea coast of Batumi and in Baku and Yerevan, had announced in 2013 that it was to build the hotel which it had aimed to open by the end of 2016.

And the Hilton hotel is just the latest to be built in Tbilisi, which has been notoriously short of bedrooms for years but is experiencing something of a hotel building boom.

The National Agency for State Property this week also sold an ornate 100-year-old post office building in the centre of Tbilisi to Nevada, a local real estate company, for 5.7m lari ($2.4m). Nevada plans to convert the building into a 30-bedroom boutique hotel within 3-1/2 years.

Tourism in Georgia is on the rise. Georgia is positioning itself as an affordable summer and winter destination for people living in the former Soviet Union, and you are now as likely to see upwardly mobile young Kazakhs in Batumi as you are in any resort around the Black Sea. Improved ties with Russia have also triggered a rise in visitor numbers, as has relative stability in Iran and Iraq. Revenues from tourism grew to $2b last year, an 8.3% increase compared to 2014.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Stock market: Roxi Petroleum

NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a mild slide since mid-August, Roxi Petroleum’s stock price received a bump after the company published encouraging results for its new oil wells on Oct. 28.

The London-based company, which operates the BNG Contract Area in western Kazakhstan near Tengiz, said it has almost completed the initial drilling operations at its new Deep Well 6.

The news, technical in nature, was accompanied by a high volume of trading on the stock market, sending Roxi to 10.5p, a 9% jump on the day of the announcement.

The company now needs to assess the commercial feasibility of the field at different depths. Clive Carver, the company’s chairman, said that the preliminary results at Deep Well 6 were even more encouraging than Roxi’s previously drilled deep wells.

A trio of high-ranking Kazakhs owns Roxi.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Armenian President to see out term

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armen Gevorgyan, chief of the presidential staff in Armenia, said that, despite the country’s prospective transition from a presidential to a parliamentary democracy, President Serzh Sargsyan will continue to rule until his term, his second and final one, ends in 2018. Last December, a referendum approved the switch in the country’s form of government. Next year, Armenians will vote in parliamentary elections with a new electoral law. In the Central Asia/South Caucasus region, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan have switched to parliamentary systems of government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Air Astana expands

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s flagship carrier Air Astana said it plans to buy 13 new aircrafts due to growing demand. Air Astana will make an offer to buy 11 Airbus and two Boeing planes over the next four years. British BAE Systems owns 49% of Air Astana, while Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna owns the rest.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Inflation rises in Kazakhstan

NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Statistics Committee said inflation had risen by 0.6% in October, pushing up prices that had stabilised in previous months. Since the beginning of the year, prices have risen an average of 6.2%. The Central Bank has said that it wants to contain inflation between 6% and 8%. Last year, inflation in Kazakhstan reached double digits.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Netanyahu visits Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan

OCT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan over the next three months, the Israeli government said. Mr Netanyahu has visited Azerbaijan previously during a term as PM in 1997. No Israeli PM has ever visited Kazakhstan. Both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are Israel’s biggest oil suppliers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan patch up border disputes

BISHKEK, OCT. 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Delegations from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan met to agree solutions to 49 long-running border disputes around the Ferghana Valley which, earlier this year, had threatened to tip into conflict.

The agreements mark the next stage in an unprecedented and surprising detente between the two rivals since Uzbek PM Shavkat Mirizyoyev was appointed acting president after the death of Islam Karimov in September.

This was the second of two meetings between the Uzbek and Kyrgyz deputy PMs. A third meeting is scheduled before the end of the year.

Bishkek-based analyst Elmira Nogoybaeva said the change in attitude in Tashkent was welcome but that Kyrgyzstan would need to see whether this was a genuine change of heart or a temporary fad.

“Such meetings are always welcomed by Kyrgyzstan, the question is how long will they last,” she said. “We all look to these meetings with optimism.”

The Ferghana Valley lies at the heart of Central Asia and analysts have previously said that if tension between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan over borders boils over into conflict, and this year there have been reports of Kyrgyz and Uzbek soldiers squaring up to each other, it will pull the whole region into war.

In Bishkek, people were optimistic. Ainagul, 43, said it was a positive but there would be problems ahead.

“Of course, it is good that borders are being delineated, now Kyrgyz people will know to whom territory belongs, and it will prevent conflict between Kyrgyz and Uzbek,” she said. “I still doubt though that conflicts on borders will stop altogether as we still have problems even on the Kyrgyz- Kazakh border which was supposed to have been delineated.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Insulting Tajik President becomes a crime

NOV. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon signed into law a motion passed by parliament at the end of last year that insulting the president would become a criminal office, media reported. The new law underlines the increasingly autocratic nature of the regime that Mr Rakhmon has built up in Tajikistan. Last month, MPs also decreed that he should be given the title of Founder of the Nation.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Chinese PM visits Kyrgyz capital

NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Chinese PM Li Keqiang visited Bishkek for a ministerial meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation members, a first step in an 8-day tour of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Mr Li will also visit Kazakhstan, his second visit this year, before flying to Latvia and Russia. During his visit to Kyrgyzstan, Mr Li also said that he hopes that the investigation into a car bomb at the Chinese embassy in August can soon be concluded.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Azerbaijan exports oil to Belarus

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan sent 84,700 tonnes of oil to Belarus, the country’s first commercial energy exports to Belarus since short-lived swaps in 2010/11. Belneftekhim, the Belarusian buyer, will use Azerbaijani crude at its Mozyr refinery. Belarus is actively seeking alternative suppliers of oil as Russian shipments have failed to meet domestic demand. Azerbaijan’s oil was sent through Georgia’s Supsa port to Odessa in Ukraine and then on to Belarus.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)