JULY 24 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan and Germany’s Siemens signed a memorandum of understanding to boost cooperation in the railway sector. The specifics of the deal were thin but it is being seen as a step towards more projects for Siemens in Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
JULY 17 2017 (The Bulletin) — Greg Hands, Britain’s trade and investment minister, lead a delegation to Kazakhstan in an apparent attempt to woo Kazakh state-owned companies that are considering IPOs to list on the London Stock Exchange. The London Stock Exchange has made little attempt to disguise its attempts to attract Kazakh companies to London despite previous problems with Kazakh corporate governance.
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international(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
BISHKEK, JULY 17 2017 (The Bulletin) — The Czech company that Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev was lauding for agreeing a multi-million-dollar deal to build new hydropower stations may not even exist.
Less than a week after a triumphant Mr Atambayev was quoted in media talking up Liglass, a company based in a provincial Czech town, as the new backers of a hydropower project that Russia backed out of in 2015, it has emerged that even his own diplomats were warning him that the company only appears to exist on paper.
Kyrgyzstan has staked much of its future economic potential on developing its hydropower. The deal was considered important because
Russia’s Rushydro pulled out of a $700m agreement to develop the hydropower stations in 2015.
Liglass had, according to Mr Atambayev, promised to pay $37m for a 50% stake in the Upper Naryn HPP, which includes two major hydropower projects, and to build and operate a string of smaller hydropower stations.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
JULY 14 2017 (The Bulletin) — Telia, the Swedish-Finnish telecoms company, said that it had written off the value of Ucell, its Uzbek subsidiary, by 2b Swedish krona ($245m) to 1.3b krona ($160m) because of currency and regulatory risks. It wants to sell out of Central Asia after a corruption row focused on its Uzbekistan unit. Earlier this year it sold its majority stake in Tajikistan’s Tcell to the Aga Khan. It appears to be having more difficulty offloading Ucell and its majority stakes in Kazakhstan’s Kcell, Azerbaijan’s Azercell and Georgia’s Geocell.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
JULY 14 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan and China signed an agriculture deal worth a reported $160m, state-linked media said. The deal, at a China-Kazakhstan investment forum three days earlier, will mean that Kazakhstan will send 200,000 tonnes of grain and 100,000 tonnes of oil crops to China. It will also mean that a grain terminal is set up on the border of Kazakhstan and China.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
JULY 22 2017 (The Bulletin) — Trade turnover between Armenia and China in the first five months of the year was 28.4% higher in 2017, at $194.9m, than during the same period in 2016, media reported. The rise shows the impact of China’s “Belt and Road” policy, a drive to spread its influence through trade across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
JULY 24 2017 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijani construction company Akkord has won a $70m road building contract in the Astana region run by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), media reported. The IBRD is linked to the World Bank and is funding a series of projects in the region to improve infrastructure.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
JULY 24 2017 (The Bulletin) — French train-maker Alstom has opened a new repair depot in Astana, media reported, underlining its interest in the region. Bernard Peille, Alstom’s managing director for the CIS region, said it would act as a hub for the wider region. Alstom and Spain’s Talgo have been competing to win business in Central Asia to modernise Soviet-era train stock.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
JULY 19 2017 (The Bulletin) — Metal production in Kazakhstan mainly rose in the first half of the year, government data showed, giving the country’s metal producers and miners a lift. Data showed that Kazakhstan’s copper output increased by 5.4% in the first six months of 2017 compared to the same period in 2017, and that steel output rose by 9.7%. KAZ Minerals is Kazakhstan’s biggest copper producer and Arcelor Mittal, which owns the Temirtau steel factory is the biggest steel producer.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
TBILISI, JULY 17 2017 (The Bulletin) — NewCo, a joint-venture between ride sharing companies Uber and Yandex Taxi in the former Soviet Union, ran into trouble within four days of its unveiling when Azerbaijan said it would boycott it because of its Armenian CEO.
The statement from the Baku Transport Agency is a reminder of how politics and business are closely entwined in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
“For this reason, after the unification of Yandex Taxi and Uber companies, if this structure is to be headed by an Armenian citizen or a person of Armenian origin, drivers of Baku will be called on to cease communication with this company,” a spokesman for the agency was quoted by Armenian media as saying. NewCo has “ appointed Armenian Tigran Khudaverdiyan, head of Yandex Taxi, as its CEO.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are still officially at war over Nagorno- Karabakh. A shaky UN-negotiated ceasefire has maintained a peace since 1994 but analysts have been warning that tension is rising with sporadic outbursts of violence and shelling intensifying.
Four days earlier Uber and Yandex Taxi agreed to merge their operations in Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Uber owns a 36.6% stake in the company and Yandex Taxi owns a 59.3% stake with the final 4.1% company,” being owned by management.
In a statement on the merger, Mr Khudaverdiyan, still formerly head of Yandex Taxi until the merger is completed by the end of 2017, said on July 13 that the new company currently services 35m rides every month, is growing at 400% per year and has a paper value of $3.725b.
“This combination greatly enhances Yandex’s ability to offer better quality service to our riders and drivers, to quickly expand our services to new regions, and to build a sustainable business,” he said.
Yandex Taxi and Uber dominate the ride-hailing market in the former Soviet Union. Their nearest rival, Gett, holds roughly 15% of the market.
Market analysts welcomed the ” move. Roman Luzgin, an analyst for investment website Seeking Alpha, said: “As the NewCo will account for more than 70% of the ride-on- demand market, the advantage of the monopolistic position will appear once the deal is executed.”
NewsCo will keep both brands operational. On the New York Stock Exchange shares in Yandex, best known as the Russian-language version of Google, rose to $31 from $27 after the news.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
