JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh authorities want to improve the credit rating service by allowing people to challenge ratings they consider to be wrong. Credit is an important issue in Kazakhstan where banks are trying to control portfolios carrying some of the highest proportion of bad debt in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has completed a 700km stretch of railway linking Iran and Kazakhstan, media reported quoting officials. The railway, which runs through the Karakum Desert, is another important exit route for goods and oil being exported out of Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s monetary base has grown by 11.5% in the past year, media reported quoting the Central Bank. Measuring a country’s monetary base is important to evaluate its financial stability.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Speaking at a ceremony where government staff received free housing, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev said that $100m of a $1.2b fund from Russia designated for Kyrgyzstan’s Customs Union entry would go towards a pot for cheap credit for citizens looking to buy homes.
“Having a roof over your head means having freedom and happiness,” said Atambayev at the ceremony. Kyrgyzstan may formally enter the economic alliance, which is set to become the Eurasian Economic Union, as early as autumn this year.
Housing is a politicised issue in Kyrgyzstan, with illegal land grabs affecting the country’s two main cities, Bishkek and Osh. Poor rural migrants have formed new settlements, often unconnected to municipal services like electricity, stretching for miles beyond both cities.
The Customs Union is also a highly politicised issue and Mr Atambayev has been at pains to emphasis the benefits of tighter relations with Russia and the joint Kyrgyz-Russian fund. With a start-up capital of $500 million in Russian credits, the fund has been heralded as a means to strengthen Kyrgyzstan’s industrial capacity and move it away from an economic model structured on re-exporting cheap Chinese goods.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Highlighting Kazakhstan’s regional economic pull, the authorities have decided to set up a centre to deal with the problems of Tajik migrant workers, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. After Russia, Kazakhstan is the most popular destination for Tajik migrant workers.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s housing market grew by 27% in the first five months of the year compared to the same period in 2013, media reported quoting the Central Bank. The data is another sign that Azerbaijan’s economy may be overheating.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JUNE 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alongside Moldova and Ukraine, Georgia signed an important deal to integrate its economy further with the EU.
The Association Agreement is a major step towards Georgia’s end goal of becoming an EU member state.
Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili was under no illusion on the significance of the agreement. It was, he said, an historic moment for Georgia.
“Unofficially we applied for membership today. Officially, it depends on progress that we will make,” he said.
Georgia has been lobbying for membership of the EU and NATO for years. Former President Mikheil Saakashvili managed to antagonise Russia during his push to join the West. Perhaps the new government’s greatest achievement so far has been to pursue its pro-West agenda while also keeping relations with Russia amicable.
Importantly, signing the Association Agreement has the potential to rock relations with Russia. It was this deal, initially put forward in November last year, that Viktor Yanukovoch, then Ukraine’s president, declined to sign, triggering protests that lead to a civil war.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JUNE 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan will increase its electricity prices in July by 15%, media reported. This is the first electricity price increase for two years and may trigger frustration. One media outlet quoted a Tajik official saying prices had to rise because of the poor financial position of the state energy producer.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JUNE 275 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has begun to collect an estimated 1.6m tonnes of grain this year, media reported. Since 2010 when it first started exporting grain, Turkmenistan has become an increasingly important global grain producer. Officials have said that it wants to boost grain production further.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JUNE 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The impact of sanctions on Russia is hitting all the economies of the South Caucasus and Central Asia but none more so than Armenia.
Armenia is particularly reliant on Russia for both financial support and as a market for its export. Last month, the Armenian Central Bank said it would cut interest rates for the third time this year to a four year low to try and curb falling inflation.
The latest inflation numbers show just how much work the Central Bank needs to do to prop up the economy. Armenia’s statistics agency said that inflation for the first half of the year was 4%, at the bottom end of its range.
But even this figure hides the really worrying data. Average prices in June fell 1.8% against May.
For more evidence of Russia’s faltering economy hitting the more outlying regions of the former Soviet Union, cognac is as good a place to look as any other. Armenian cognac is famous around the former Soviet Union and Russia is its biggest export market.
The latest data showed that cognac production fell for the first five months of May by 11.1% to just over 5.5m litres compared to the same period in 2013.
Although no official explanation has been given, the message is still fairly clear.
“In the first quarter of 2014 Armenia exported to Russia half the amount of cognac compared with the the same reporting period in 2013,” an Armenian business website reported. “They [Russian cognac importers] are in an unstable financial situation and do not know what will the political conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
