Tag Archives: business

First cargo crosses new bridge from Azerbaijan to Iran

MARCH 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The first cargo train crossed a new bridge over the River Astarachy, the border between Azerbaijan and Iran, media reported. This is the only railway link between Azerbaijan and Iran and is important because it signifies just how relations between neighbours have improved. The bridge is also vital if a plan to build a north-south trade corridor from India to Russia is to be turned into reality.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

EBRD set to re-engage with Uzbekistan

Leave a Reply

MARCH 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a major boost for Uzbekistan under its new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) hinted that it was going to re-engage with the country after a 10 year break.

The move comes a month after EBRD delegates flew to Tashkent for talks with the Uzbek government on how best to reignite the lending process, a credit line that was cut in the late 2000s after rows over corruption, human rights and media freedom.

Reuters news agency quoted two anonymous EBRD officials in their London office as saying that they expected the bank to signal that it was re-starting lending to projects in Uzbekistan within a couple of days. They also said a visit to Tashkent later this month by EBRD president Suma Chakrabarti had also been discussed. By the end of the week no official word had been given but neither had officials refuted the Reuters story.

For Mr Mirziyoyev, a signal from the EBRD that it was preparing to resume normal service would be a major boost. He has been trying to pursue a reform-minded agenda, rolling back some of the more intransigent and isolationist policies that

his predecessor, Islam Karimov, followed. Karimov died in September 2016.

A second Reuters exclusive from Tashkent on March 7 said Mr Mirziyoyev had clashed with some of his ministers over his reform agenda.

The EBRD said that it has lent 900m euro to projects in Uzbekistan, although the flow dropped off in the first decade of the 21st century. In hasn’t approved a project in Uzbekistan since 2007 and doesn’t keep an office in Tashkent. In 2003, Uzbekistan held its AGM in Tashkent, a meeting overshadowed by rows over human rights.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Nuclear fuel bank in Kazakhstan nears completion

Leave a Reply

MARCH 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A low enriched uranium bank being built in Kazakhstan should be operational by September, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano said in a press release. The uranium fuel bank will be the first of its kind in the world and will allow countries to buy uranium for nuclear fuel. It will be administered by the IAEA. For Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, the fuel bank will be a personal success as he wants to build Kazakhstan’s reputation as a global centre for nuclear energy. Kazakhstan is the world’s biggest uranium miner.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Kazakhstan’s wheat shipment arrives in Vietnam

Leave a Reply

MARCH 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The first shipment of wheat from Kazakhstan reached Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam on March 4, the website of Kazakh PM Bakytzhan Sagintayev said. At a ceremony in Ho Chi Minh City, the Kazakh ambassador to Vietnam said part of the importance of the shipment of wheat reaching Vietnam was to test the transit route from Central Asia, across China and down to south-east Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Azerbaijan quits EITI governance body after being suspended

Leave a Reply

MARCH 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan quit the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a governance watchdog used as a guide by financial institutions to decide whether to give out loans, 24 hours after its membership was suspended for failing to meet a number of demands.

By quitting the EITI, Azerbaijan risks jeopardising multi-billion-dollar loans from financial institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank to build a $46b gas pipeline to Europe.

Announcing Azerbaijan’s decision to quit the EITI, Shahmar Movsumov, head of the SOFAZ, Azerbaijan’s state oil fund and the country’s top representative at the EITI, said the EITI had been infiltrated by groups which have shifted its agenda away from transparency in the extractive industries towards concerns about human rights and media freedom.

“We consider the Board’s decision on suspension of Azerbaijan as an unfair one,” he said. “The irrelevant facts introduced by different advocacy groups on various occasions show that the Initiative failed to stick to its original mission and objectives.”

The day before at its meeting in Bogota, the EITI had suspended Azerbaijan’s membership for failing to make sufficient progress in improving human right and NGO freedoms.

The move was welcomed by rights campaigners. Tom Mayne, a freelance consultant, said the EITI needed to throw Azerbaijan out of the group to retain its credibility.

“Transparency of oil revenues and respect for civil society go hand in hand, and both the EITI and independent observers have ruled that Azerbaijan has not created the space for free and open discussion of what happens to oil revenues,” he said.

The EITI is based in Oslo. It was set up in 2003 with the aim of setting “the international standard for transparency and accountability around a country’s oil, gas and mineral resources”.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR buys oil tankers

Leave a Reply

MARCH 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Socar, Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company, bought seven large oil tankers from Turkey-based Palmali last month to boost trade capacity in the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean. In an interview with Reuters, Arzu Azimov, head of the Geneva-based Socar Trading, said the company wanted to boost its shipping capacity. Socar Trading now owns 37 tankers, although most of these are significantly smaller than the large tankers it has just bought.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Armenia drives to attract Iranians

Leave a Reply

FEB. 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Armenian authorities have started discussing setting up Farsi learning centres, installing bill- boards aimed at Farsi speakers and a Farsi information hotline. Media reported the Farsi-language drive was a tactic to encourage more Iranians to visit Armenia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)

Telia asks Tajikistan for clarification

Leave a Reply

FEB. 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swedish telecoms company Telia has asked the Tajik government for a face-to-face meeting to explain a tax investigation against its local subsidiary, Tcell, which has slowed its previously agreed sale to the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development. Telia wants to sell its Central Asian subsidiaries after a corruption scandal in Uzbekistan damaged its reputation.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)

Oil price gives Kazakh GDP boost

Leave a Reply

MARCH 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Strong oil prices may boost GDP growth in Kazakhstan to 2.8% this year, economy minister Timur Suleimenov told Reuters in an interview. The previous government GDP growth estimate for 2017 had been 2.5%. Last month, Kazakhstan increased its expected oil price this year for its government budget to $50/barrel up from $35/barrel.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)

Kazakh elite are winners from bank merger

Leave a Reply

MARCH 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — By merging Kazkommertsbank with Halyk Bank, the Kazakh elite have completed their drive to control the country’s banking sector.

It’s been a long campaign but, for the Kazakh elite, one worth fighting and winning. If previously, the country’s banking sector had been troublesome, creating billionaires such as Mukhtar Ablyazov and Nurlan Subkhanberdin who didn’t necessarily want to go along with President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s vision for Kazakhstan, now they have full control.

The process to subjugate the banking sector started with the government’s purchase of BTA Bank in 2008/9 when it was on the brink of collapse. Next came the not-so-subtle takeover of Kazkommertsbank in 2014/15 and then its absorption of BTA Bank, and its mountain of bad debt.

And now we have the denouement.

Kazkommertsbank has apparently agreed to merge with, or perhaps more accurately – be taken over by, Halyk Bank. The first and second biggest banks in the country will create a mega-bank that will dominate the sector.

Halyk Bank is owned by Dinara Kulibayeva, President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s daughter, and her husband, Timur Kulibayev. Since 2015, the 37-year-old Kenes Rakishev, one of the Kazakh elite’s favourite businessmen has been the majority owner of Kazkommertsbank. Last year he also became its chairman.

And, as if to underline the elite/insider nature of the deal, the Kazakh Central Bank has given the deal its blessing, saying that it will provide the necessary funds to see it through, including buying up the bad debt that Kazkommertzbank inherited when it took over BTA Bank. In other words, expect the new bank to be in excellent health and to be fully compliant to the whims of the Kazakh elite.

This cements the elite’s control of Kazakh business and banking. Opposition forces will never have as much leverage, good or bad, as when Ablyazov controlled BTA Bank and Subkhanberdin controlled Kazkommertsbank.

The business acumen of the Kazkommertsbank-Halyk merger may not be obvious, but the political reasons are crystal clear.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)