OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Korea International Cooperation Agency will send $4m to the United Nations World Food Programme to implement a three-year programme aimed at improving food security in four regions of Kyrgyzstan. The project will target the poorest areas of the Batken, Jalal-Abad, Osh and Naryn provinces in central and south Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
TBILISI, OCT. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — EU member states agreed to relax visa requirements for Georgians, a major step towards Georgia’s stated aim of gaining visa-free travel to the EU’s Schengen Zone.
The agreement needs to be voted on by the European Parliament but it would allow Georgian citizens to travel to the EU for up to 90 days in any 180-day period.
“The Council takes the view that the entry into force of visa liberalisation for Georgia should be at the same time as the entry into force of the new ‘suspension mechanism’,” said the EU Council.
The suspension mechanism is a new tool that will be introduced to allow the EU to withdraw visa-free access quickly if members felt that it was being abused. The EU has said that this mechanism was necessary to give visa-free access to Ukraine, Turkey and Kosovo, as well as Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
OCT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev banned unscheduled police raids on businesses, in a move to improve, at least on paper, Uzbekistan’s business climate.
According to the decree, from January 2017 only pre-approved checks, linked to criminal activity or financial misconduct, can be ordered. This should end police raids, which have been linked to corruption.
This move fits Mr Mirziyoyev’s drive to build a presidential look for himself.
For the past few weeks, he has toured all regions in Uzbekistan, meeting foreign leaders and appearing more approachable than his predecessor Islam Karimov who died at the beginning of September
Mr Mirziyoyev is expected to win a presidential election in December.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
OCT. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Russia agreed to jointly produce tactical air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, according to the AzeriDefense magazine. Representatives of KTRV, Russia’s Tactical Missiles Corporation, and Sharg, owned by Azerbaijan’s ministry of defence, signed the deal in Baku. Azerbaijan has been spending heavily on its weapon system in the last few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
OCT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Central Banks across Central Asia and the South Caucasus seem to have switched off their crisis mode, as inflation slows, oil prices pick up and remittances begin to regenerate.
Excited about the imminent re-start of the Kashagan offshore oil project, Kazakhstan is looking stronger, after months of uncertainty regarding its currency and its budget stability.
An important sign of the country’s recovering health was the rate cut by Kazakhstan’s Central Bank this week, which said that with inflation back into the 6 – 8% band that it was targeting and that monetary policy could be eased.
This decision has been in the Central Banker’s thinking over the past few weeks. That much is clear. Daniyar Akishev has been showing, for the first time, a more confident and determined tone.
And countries less impacted by oil prices, from Armenia to Kyrgyzstan, have also tried to boost their rather slow economic activity by lowering or keeping low interest rates in the past weeks.
All currencies from the region have been hit by a stronger US dollar over the past two years, and their depreciation led inevitably to a sharp increase in consumer prices.
Some — such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia — needed strong monetary interventions. Others, such as Tajikistan, Armenia and Uzbekistan stabilised at a comparatively faster pace.
Last month, Russia’s Central Bank said migrant worker remittances to Kyrgyzstan had increased by 21%, reflecting a higher migration rate. On the other hand remittances to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan fell because of a drop in the number of migrants. Perhaps this is the Eurasian Economic Union effect?
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are among the top remittance-dependent countries in the world.
As the ship seems steadier, however, countries across the region will have to cope with more domestic problems, chiefly in the banking sector and other private sectors hit hard by the economic downturn.
As shown this week with the bankruptcy of Bank Standard, Azerbaijan’s financial sector doesn’t seem to have fully recovered from the crisis. And in western Kazakhstan, where oil is the job creator, a month-long strike just ended with the workers obtaining higher salaries and the company winning state tenders. There is still work to do.
By Paolo Sorbello, Deputy editor, The Conway Bulletin
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
SEPT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR could soon enter the Bulgarian gas storage market, a potential bridgehead for its plans to construct a pipeline that will pump gas from the Caspian Sea to European consumers.
Bulgarian officials said that SOCAR has expressed interest in participating in the expansion of the Chiren storage facility. The government plans a €200m investment to double its capacity to 1b cubic metres. The underground gas storage facility at Chiren links up with Bulgaria’s network, making it a potentially valuable asset for SOCAR, which agreed to send 1b cubic metres of gas to Bulgaria by 2020. Azerbaijan wants to pump gas to
Europe via the so-called Southern Gas Corridor, a network of pipelines from Azerbaijan through Turkey, Greece and Albania to Italy.
Bulgaria hopes to receive Azerba- ijani gas through the construction of the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria which will feed off the TANAP pipe- line that will form the backbone of the Southern Gas Corridor stretching from Azerbaijan to Italy.
Azerbaijan views Europe as an important next client for its gas.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
OCT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – >> I read earlier in the Bulletin that the Pope flew over to Tbilisi but wasn’t warmly received. This surprised me as I thought the Pope was generally greeted by massive grounds wherever he went.
>> You’re right. Georgians gave Pope Francis a luke- warm welcome. Staff at the Vatican had probably been expecting a far more friendly touch down but then Georgia has a complicated relationship with the Catholic Church.
>> So what actually happened in Georgia?
>> Essentially, although the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, greeted Pope Francis, he was made to feel unwelcome. Many Orthodox priests told their congregations to stay away from his Papal mass on the Saturday and a hardcore group of Orthodox believers followed him around shouting various slogans against the Catholic Church.
>> Right, the sound fairly active? Outside the Pope’s visit, is the Orthodox Church influential in Georgia?
>> Yes, very. Around 80% of Georgians identify themselves as Orthodox. The Patriarch, Ilia II, is one of the most powerful men in the country and is often turned to in times of crisis. He has brokered deals between rival political leaders. Presidents and prime ministers are careful to be seen attending church and meeting with the Patriarch. He is also a staunch conservative, holding views that represent those of many in Georgia.
The Georgian Orthodox is anti-gay rights and same sex marriage, for example. There are often Orthodox priests leading anti-gay rights marches.
And the Georgian Orthodox Church an incredibly influential body. Public opinion surveys consistently rank it as the most trusted public body in Georgia.
>> I see. But is the Orthodox Church involved any way in Georgia’s foreign policy?
>> Not officially. Georgia’s constitution states that the Orthodox Church is fully independent of the state. That said it has played a major role on occasion. After Georgia and Russia fought a brief war in 2008 over the disputed region of South Ossetia, it was the Patriarch who was able to reach out to the Russian side and begin to mend relations. He was in Moscow towards the end of 2008 to see the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexey II, for the last time. While he was there he also met up with Dmitri Medvedev, then Russia’s president. This was considered a vital first step towards pulling Georgia and Russia together.
>> So, Ilia II is definitely a bit of an all-rounded then. He seems to play a major role in domestic affairs, influencing public opinion, and also happy to deal in high level diplomacy in international affairs.
>> He’s certainly a major factor in modern Georgia. Watch out for his reaction to any issues before or after the parliamentary election in Georgia on Oct. 8.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Switzerland-based fertiliser producer EuroChem said it would increase investment in its phosphate mine in southern Kazakhstan to try to drive up production. EuroChem produces 640,000 tonnes of phosphate rock annually at its Zhambyl mine. It wants to more than double this.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
ALMATY, OCT. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Betraying its nervousness over labour disputes, the Kazakh government stepped in to end a strike by 2,000 workers at an oil company near Zhanaozen in the west of the country.
To end the strike, the government promised the company employing the workers a major contract boost which will allow it to increase salaries — meeting the strikers’ demands.
The strike over pay had been building, sporadically, for weeks but had only been supported by a few dozen people, some of them on hunger strikes. It was only on Sept. 30, when 2,000 strikers rallied for the first time demanding higher salaries from Burgylau, a local subcontractor for the state-owned Ozenmunaigas, that the government sent senior offi- cials to defuse what to them had become an intolerable scenario.
Zhanaozen, a scruffy town built in Soviet times to house labourers working on nearby oil fields, is seared into the Kazakh national conscience.
In 2011 clashes between protesters and police killed at least 15 people and plunged the government into perhaps its most serious post-Soviet crisis. Hundreds of riot police poured into the region and emergency powers were imposed. Eventually, the government was forced to guarantee jobs and wages in the region.
Importantly the clashes in Zhanaozen in 2011 have defined Kazakh labour disputes. Since then big business and the government have shown an unwillingness to face down worker demands.
And so it proved again. A Burgylau executive had told workers that the company was unable to pay workers any more because it wasn’t making a profit. This changed, though, after a visit from Alik Aidarbayev, governor of the western Mangistau region, who offered Burgylau another $18m worth of contracts in exchange for meeting the workers’ demands.
Burgylau is a subsidiary of KazPet- roDrilling.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
SEPT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – During a visit to the Karakalpakstan region in west Uzbekistan, acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev urged the local administration to speed up the modernisation of the region’s biggest thermal power station, Takhiatash. The upgrade scheme is being part funded by a $300m loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and will boost overall production to 930MW from the current 730MW.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
