MAY 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, the country’s railway operator, issued bonds for 50b tenge ($150m) with a 10-year maturity, in what has been described as the largest issue of debt in Kazakhstan in 2016. Halyk Finance, part of Halyk Bank, the second-largest lender in Kazakhstan, brokered the deal in the Kazakh Stock Exchange.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
MAY 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – State-owned Uzbekistan Airways said it transported 535,600 passengers in the first quarter of 2016, a 6.8% reduction compared to the same period last year. The company also said it reduced the number of flights by 9.8% to 5,007. The biggest cut has been to Uzbekistan Airways’ internal routes, a sign, perhaps, of a weaker domestic economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
MAY 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s flagship carrier Air Astana said it has postponed the launch of its new route to Iran by a month. The company did not give an explanation on why it had delayed the launch of the route, which had been a much heralded link to Iran. Kazakhstan has been keen to welcome Iran back into the international community since the lifting of most sanctions earlier this year. Flights linking Almaty and Tehran should now start on June 30.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov invited Qatar’s business community to invest in the construction of the Turkmenistan- Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. The first investment agreement was signed by the consortium shareholders in April 2015. The project is considered pivotal in connecting South and Central Asia as well as for securing the long-term future of Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Bank approved a $30m loan to aid Armenia’s troubled power sector. The aim of the project is to give credit to state- owned power generation companies which have been losing money and rung up millions of dollars in debt. The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (ANPP) has accumulated a deficit of $104m. Power generation, and how to pay for electricity, are sensitive subjects in the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
MAY 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek police arrested Tokhirzhon Zhalilov, described by media as the managing director of GM Uzbekistan, and accused him of faking exports to Russia.
Mr Zhalilov, together with other officials, allegedly masterminded a scheme to send cars booked for export to Russia to Shymkent, a city in Kazakhstan near the border with Uzbekistan. Instead of being shipped on to Russia, these cars were sent back to Uzbekistan and re-sold. This, according to sources at Uzbekistan’s state-owned car-maker quoted by the Uzbek service of RFE/RL, allowed Mr Zhalilov to amass illicit funds, which he then hid offshore.
The Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta said that, despite promises made earlier this year, GM Uzbekistan had failed to deliver shipments of its new Ravon model by the end of April.
So far, only the US-funded RFE/RL and Rossiyskaya Gazeta have reported the alleged arrest. Uzbekistan’s prosecutor, also, has not confirmed Mr Zhalilov’s arrest.
GM Uzbekistan is a joint venture between US-based GM and state ownedUzavtosanoat.
It is one of the largest car producers in Central Asia and one of Uzbekistan’s largest industrial units.
It mainly exports to Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
MAY 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Norwegian telecoms company Telenor said its CFO Richard Olav Aa and General Counsel Pal Wien Espen resigned after an internal investigation on alleged corruption at VimpelCom — of which Telenor owns 33% — in Uzbekistan. The investigation concluded that although there had not been any corruption within Telenor, weak structures within the company had allowed corruption within VimpelCom to exist. In February, VimpelCom admitted to paying $115m in bribes to officials in Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
MAY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s ministry of agriculture said it has banned imports of potatoes from Kyrgyzstan following an outbreak of Globodera rostochiensis, a pest that the Kazakh authorities found in several imported shipments. The Kazakh government sent back around 1,000 tonnes of potatoes to Kyrgyzstan citing international trade agreements between the two countries.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
MAY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Centerra Gold shares rebounded 5% to 6.93 Canadian dollars last Friday after the regulator of the Toronto Stock Exchange briefly halted trading the day before, when news came through of a police raid at the office of a Centerra- owned company in Kyrgyzstan.
The stock continued to float around 7 Canadian dollars, settling on 7.18 yesterday, despite what could be regarded as poor quarterly results.
Centerra, though, still handed out its quarterly dividend of 0.04 Canadian dollars, in line with previous payments, which is something that other companies in the region have been dodging over the past few months if results have been lower-then-expected.
Low gold prices and slower-than-expected gold production have hit the company’s performance.
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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)
APRIL 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s flagship carrier Tajik Air will start its Dushanbe-Beijing connection on May 2, a move that could boost trade ties with China. The direct flight will operate every Monday. Previously, Urumqi, in the Xinjiang region, was Tajik Air’s only Chinese destination.
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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)
