Tag Archives: business

Tajik President daughter heads bank

JULY 18 2017 (The Bulletin) — One of Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon’s daughters, 23-year-old Zarina Rakhmona, was appointed deputy head of Orienbank, a commercial bank, in January, media reported. News of the appointment has only just emerged as it was not announced at the time. The head of the bank is the President Rakhmon’s brother-in- law, Hasan Asadullozoda. Mr Rakhmon has steadily appointed his close family members into increasingly important positions. His son is the mayor of Dushanbe and his eldest daughter is his chief- of-staff.

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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)

Kazakhstan establishes national tourism company

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JULY 23 2017 (The Bulletin) — Looking to attract more tourists to Kazakhstan, the Kazakh government set up the Kazakh National Tourism Company. Shrugging off accusations of an old-fashioned top- down approach to tourism development, Arystanbek Mukhamediuly, the Kazakh minister for culture, said that Kazakhstan’s tourism potential was untapped.

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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)

Turkmenistan to start Galkynysh 3rd phase

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JULY 21 2017 (The Bulletin) — Turkmenistan is due to begin work on a third phase development of its Galkynysh gas field next year, a source at the project told the Trend news agency. Galkynysh, in the east of the country, is one of the biggest gas fields in the world and is central to Turkmenistan’s wealth. It pumps almost all of its gas to China, currently. The extension to Galkynysh is timed for the start of the so-called TAPI gas pipeline, scheduled for 2019, which will send gas across Afghanistan to energy- hungry consumers in Pakistan and India.

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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)

AIFC promises Bitcoin lead for Kazakhstan

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JULY 17 2017 (The Bulletin) — Nurlan Kussainov, head of the Astana International Finance Centre Authority (AIFC), said that he wanted Kazakhstan to become a global centre for the bitcoin virtual currency, promising to set up a legal framework to regulate and stabilise the controversial cryptocurrency. The AIFC Authority is the legal body set up to regulate the AIFC, an attempt by the Kazakh government to lure international finance companies to set up companies in Astana.

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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)

94% of creditors support restructure plan says International Bank of Azerbaijan

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JULY 18 2017 (The Bulletin) — More than 94% of International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) creditors supported a debt restructuring scheme, the bank said. It made the statement a few days after saying that it had won approval to go through with a controversial scheme that will see creditors lose 20% of their $3.3b investments. IBA said in May that it needed to restructure its debts.

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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)

Kazakh buys regional bank

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JULY 4 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakh businessman Arif Babayev bought the Ukraine-based Region- Bank, renamed Sky Bank, for an undisclosed fee, Ukrainian media reported. Mr Babayev used to be the managing director of Kazkommertsbank, which has recently merged with Halyk Bank. He bought an initial 53.54% stake in Region-Bank in December 2016.

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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)

Czech firm buys into Kyrgyz hydropower

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BISHKEK, JULY 10 2017 (The Bulletin) — Liglass Trading, a Czech company, signed a deal with the Kyrgyz government to buy into a major hydropower project that Russia pulled out of in December 2015 after a drop in oil prices and US-led sanctions triggered an economic recession.

The deal means Liglass will pay $37m for a 50% stake in Upper Naryn HPP, the company created to build and operate the Akbulun and Naryn-1 hydropower plants. It will also build 10 smaller hydro stations by end-202o.

Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev hailed the deal.

“The arrival of large-scale private investment in Europe will serve as a strong signal to potential investors from around the world, confirming the readiness of Kyrgyzstan to create all the necessary conditions for doing business and effective implementation of mutually beneficial joint projects,” he was quoted as saying in a government press release.

RusHydro had planned to invest more than $700m into Kyrgyz hydropower before it quit in 2015.

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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)

Azerbaijan boosts gas imports from Russia

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JULY 3 2017 (The Bulletin) — Russia’s Gazprom said that it was in negotiations with Azerbaijan to increase the amount of gas it sells it. The statement followed a meeting between the head of Gazprom Alexey Miller and the head of SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state- owned oil and gas company, Rovnag Abdullayev and highlights improved Azerbaijan-Russia relations. Azerbaijan started gas imports in September 2015.

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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)

Azerbaijan oil exports via BTC fall 11.8%

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JULY 5 2017 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s oil exports through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) fell by 11.8% in the first half of 2017 compared to the same period last year to 13.174m tonnes, state-owned SOCAR said. This is significant as the BTC export route is Azerbaijan’s main thoroughfare for its oil, its most important commodity. No reason was given for the drop in oil exports.

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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)

Lender targets Kazakhstan

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JULY 6 2017 (The Bulletin) — TWINO, the peer-to-peer loans company, said that it was going to start lending to Kazakh clients, a PR boost for Kazakhstan which has been trying to deflect from negative headlines about the rise of non- performing loans in its banking sector. TWINO, based in London, said that it was the first European peer-to-peer loans provider to lend to Kazakhstan. It already lends to Latvia. Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia, Georgia, Denmark, Mexico and Spain.

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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)