Tag Archives: business

Armenia needs high-value investments

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia needs to attract high-value added investment to sustain its growth, Arsen Nazaryan an officer at the World Bank’s IFC local office said in an interview. Of crucial importance, foreign investment that can upgrade the domestic economy and increase high-skilled jobs can only be obtained if the country undergoes more reforms, Mr Nazaryan told the banks.am website. A section of its economy that Armena has developed is tech.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kazakhstan’s KEGOC pays dividend

OCT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state-owned electricity distributor KEGOC said it paid a dividend of almost 25 tenge (7 cent) per share, amounting to 40% of the net profit for the first half of 2016. The dividend is almost three times as large as the one distributed last year. At a shareholder’s meeting, KEGOC also decided to expand its board of directors to eight, appointing two new local managers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kazakhstan not to consider nuclear plans

NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s energy minister Kanat Bozumbayev said that the government will not consider proposals to build any new power plants for the next seven years because the country’s energy balance is stable. The issue of building a nuclear or coal-fired power plant has been on and off for years in Kazakhstan. It appears that an economic downturn, which has drained the government’s reserves, has finally snuffed out these plans altogether.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

CPC exports from Kazakhstan rise

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Caspian Pipeline Consortium, an oil transit route along the northern coast of the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan’s oil fields to the Russian port of Novorossiysk, said it increased exports in October to around 4m tonnes, a 24% rise compared to last year. For the first 10 months of 2016, exports have reached 35.3m tonnes. If growth projections continue for the next two months, the Consortium, led by US-based Chevron, Russia’s Transneft and Kazakhstan’s Kazmunaigas, will register a record export year in 2016.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Shell cuts costs in Kazakhstan

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — British-Dutch oil company Shell said it will cut costs across the board, a move that is poised to impact the company’s expenditure in Kazakhstan. In Kazakhstan, Shell operates a handful of offshore fields, most notably the giant Kashagan, and is also involved in the Karachaganak gas and condensate field. Sustained low oil prices have hit energy companies’ ability to spend on their upstream projects.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Turkmenistan completes railway construction

OCT. 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s foreign ministry said that construction work at a railway network connecting Atamyrat-Imamnazar to Akina in Afghanistan was complete. The two countries had started building the 88km railway connection in mid-2013. Altcom, a Ukrainian company, built two of the railway’s bridges. Turkmenistan and Afghanistan have tried to improve diplomatic ties to jointly combat Islamic extremists who threaten Turkmenistan’s southern border.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

ABD to fund road in Tajikistan

NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will give a $65.2m loan to Tajikistan to support the construction and remodelling of the Dushanbe-Kurgan Tyube road link. The highway serves as the country’s major north-south artery. The Tajik government will allocate $17.2m to the project. The OPEC Fund for International Development will also send a $12m loan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Work starts on building Tajikistan’s Rogun dam

OCT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon inaugurated construction of the Rogun dam which should, if completed to the current plans, be the tallest dam in the world.

The Rogun dam project, though, is a project mired in controversy. Drawn up by the Soviets, it has been at the design stage for decades.

Downstream Uzbekistan is fiercely against the project, fearing that it will divert water that it needs to irrigate its cotton fields. Environmentalists have complained about the damage that will be caused to the natural landscape and human rights groups have documented the thousands of people forcibly moved to clear space for the project.

The inauguration of the Rogun dam project also came the day after a three-hour blackout hit the entire country. Supporters of the project said that this highlighted the need for the hydropower project to be built.

Italy’s Salini Impregilo was handed the $3.9b contract to build the Rogun dam earlier this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

VimpelCom says that price inflation boosts profit in Uzbekistan

TASHKENT, NOV. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian telecoms operator VimpelCom said revenues in Uzbekistan grew 5% in Q3 2016, compared to the same period in 2015 because of a new pricing mechanism and underlying inflation.

In Uzbekistan, VimpelCom started to link its mobile charges to the US dollar, after volatility in the Uzbek sum hit the company’s revenue stream. This pushed up mobile and data prices plans across the country. It said that average user revenue had risen by 14%.

Tougher competition, however, shrank the customer base of Vimpel- Com’s Beeline brand in the country.

“The Uzbek market continues to experience intense competition, however Beeline remains the leader.

The overall customer base decreased 6% to 9.6m, due to the launch of two new mobile operators in 2015,” the company said in a statement.

Subscribers numbers had fallen below 10m at end-2015, a 3-year low. Earlier this year, VimpelCom paid a fine of $795m after it admitted paying bribes in 2007/8 to access the Uzbek mobile market.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Uzbekistan Airways to start flights to London

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned Uzbekistan Airways said it will start a short term direct connection to London Heathrow in December. The twice weekly flights will run from Dec. 9 to Dec. 20. This seems to be an attempt to test the feasibility of a renewed and stable connection to Europe’s financial capital, after direct flights became inconstant over the past decade.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)