JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kaztelecom, Kazakhstan’s stateowned fixed line telecoms company, plans to launch an IPO in London, its CEO Kuanyshbek Yessekeyev, said in an interview to the KazTag news agency. If the IPO does progress, and Mr Yessekeyev didn’t give a timeframe, it will attract much interest.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s public services regulator approved a 17% increase in electricity prices, the third in two years. The price increase has angered people in Armenia and opposition parties have called for protests.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – MPs in Kyrgyzstan’s parliament have called for the introduction of a new tax on gold exports, media reported, pitting themselves, once again, against the country’s largest foreign investor.
The Kumtor gold east of the country is Kyrgyzstan’s single biggest industrial asset and parliamentarians said that its exports needed to be targeted to raise extra revenue for the national budget.
Centerra Gold, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, owns Kumtor. The Kyrgyz government is a minority owner in Centerra. It has been fighting to increase its stake in the company and to gain more control over Kumtor itself. Earlier this year, a Kyrgyz PM resigned after failing to win concessions.
Mirlan Bakirov, an MP for the opposition Onuguu (Progress) party, proposed a 20% gold export tax to be instated at the beginning of 2016, while Alla Izmalkova of the Social Democratic Party argued for a similar tariff to start in 2018.
Official data showed that in 2014, Kyrgyzstan exported 85,000 tonnes of gold, an increase of around 36% from mine in the 2013.
But the issue of taxing gold exports has been passing around the Kyrgyz parliament for years without ever being resolved.
Earlier in June, Kozhobek Ryspayev, member of the Committee on Fuel and Energy, said an export tax would harm the mining industry. Valentin Bogdetsky, member of the Board of the Kyrgyz Mining Association similarly stated: “The imposition of an export duty on gold is not a solution to the problems between the industry and the government.”
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – India will reject a 25% stake in the Abai oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, Indian sources told the Economic Times newspaper. Kazakhstan had offered India the stake in the untapped field after it chose China over India as a shareholder in the Kashagan oil field in 2013.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – APM Terminals plans to increase the size and depth of its port at Poti, on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, media quoted its deputy managing director Joseph Crowley as saying at a conference. Mr Crowley said APM wanted to add two more deep-water berths to the port, boosting its capacity.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan increased the amount of cargo and people it transported around the country, the government said. It’s not possible to independently verify the numbers but Turkmenistan has made several high profile announcements over the past months about boosting its transport sector.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek-US joint car-maker General Motors Uzbekistan said it would discount two of its models by 15% until the end of 2015, an admission of sorts that its needs to boost sales to counter a falling market linked to economic turmoil in Russia.
Customers, though, can only claim the 15% discount on Lacetti and Cobalt cars by paying in US dollars with international debit and credit cards.
The car plant in the eastern town of Andijan is critical for jobs in the surrounding region and also an important barometer of Uzbek industry.
Most of its sales are made in Russia and also in neighbouring Kazakhstan but the fall in oil prices has hit the region and badly dented demand for cars.
In March, the plant sold 1,757 cars compared to 4,604 cars in the same month a year earlier, the Association of European Businesses, an industry lobby group, said.
As well as driving up car sales (pun intended), the government may also be looking to bolster US dollar flows in its economy.
Information leaking out of Uzbekistan on the state of the economy is light but it does appear to show that the slowdown in the Russian economy is having a major impact on Uzbekistan. Remittances are hugely important in Uzbekistan. They rely on a strong Russian economy. Economists have estimated that these will fall by 40% this year. Global gas prices, another important foreign currency earner for Uzbekistan, are also low.
By imposing a dollar payment scheme on car buyers, the Uzbek government may be trying to get hard currency flowing through the system once again as well as boosting sales at its flagship industrial asset.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said lending to projects in Kazakhstan would hit a record $1b this year as the country diversifies away from oil, gas and other extractive minerals.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company, said it wanted to invest $1.2b upgrading its oil refinery in Baku. Officials in Azerbaijan have been saying for several months that they want to increase their capacity for producing high-grade oil-products.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia’s Lukoil will knock 10% off the price of assets in Kazakhstan it plans to sell to China’s Sinopec to ease the deal through, media reported quoting industry sources. The discount shows how oil and gas assets in Kazakhstan have lost value since oil prices fell sharply.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
