OCT. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Fitch, the rating agency, confirmed a BBB- rating for Azerbaijan after its latest economic assessment. It predicted GDP growth of 5% this year, driven by government spending, up from 2.2% in 2012. Fitch said, though, that this growth would slow slightly in 2014 and 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the annual conference of the ruling Nur Otan political party, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said he supported the introduction of a wealth tax and wanted more people to learn English. The Nur Otan conference and Mr Nazarbayev’s pronouncements are a decent weather mast for future policy in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia lifted a ban on fruit imports from Georgia, a further sign of improving relations. In 2006, Russia banned fruit from Georgia, officially because of poor hygiene. Most analysts, though, said the ban was in retaliation for the expulsion from Tbilisi of four soldiers for spying.
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(News report from Issue No. 156, published on Oct. 16 2013)
OCT. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hundreds of ethnic Russians in a suburb of Moscow rioted against migrant workers from the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The trigger for the violence was the alleged murder of a Russian man by an Azerbaijani. Remittances from migrant workers are vital to the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 156, published on Oct. 16 2013)
OCT. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — One of the features of Azerbaijan’s oil boom has been its parallel armaments boom. As Azerbaijan’s economy has grown, so has its expenditure on weapons.
And 2014, according to media reports, is not going to be an exception. The Azerbaijani state budget forecasts spending 1.6b manat ($2b) on weapons next year, a 7% increase on 2013.
Azerbaijan is still at war, officially anyway, with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is clearly winning the arms race with its neighbour and biggest enemy.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) has estimated that in real terms, taking out inflation and currency fluctuations, Azerbaijan’s military spending has increased ten-fold since 2000. Armenia has doubled defence spending in the same period.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The number of people with consumer loans in Azerbaijan has doubled in the past year to 1.75m, roughly 18% of the population, Eurasianet reported. It said that banks have been increasingly eager to hand out loans, relaxing barriers and paperwork. Some analysts have warned that the consumer boom is unaffordable.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tax revenues from Azerbaijan’s non-oil sector increased by 11.3% in the first nine months of 2013, Azerbaijani minister for economic development Shahin Mustafayev said according to media reports. International economists have said it is vital Azerbaijan develops its non-oil sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Samruk-Kazyna, the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund, is continuing to dispense its non-core assets, managing director, Nurlan Rakhmetov, said in a media interview. Mr Rakhmetov said 409 of 560 non-core assets, such as nursing homes and hotels, had already been dropped. Samruk-Kazyna manages roughly $80b worth of assets.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan will increase spending on military kit again next year, media reported quoting the national budget. Since 2000, Azerbaijan, with its oil and gas fuelled economy, has increased spending on military equipment 10-fold.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan plans to triple excise duty on cigarettes and alcohol over the next three years, media quoted economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev as saying. Currently a carton of 1,000 cigarettes carries a duty of 1,550 tenge ($10). This could rise to 5,000 tenge by 2016, Mr Dossayev said.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
