AUG. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Central Bank appointed Deutsche Bank, HSBC and JP Morgan to lead the issue of its inaugural $500m Eurobond, media reported. In May, Armenia said it wanted to issue the debt to pay off a $500m loan from Russia it had borrowed during the 2009 global financial crisis.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with the FT, Umirzak Shukeyev, chairman of Kazakhstan’s $80b sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, said he wanted to streamline the organisation and improve corporate governance standards. Over the past few years, Kazakh companies have attracted increased criticism on governance issues.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In the year to end-July food prices in Armenia increased by around 10%, media quoted official statistics as saying. Food price increases are an important statistic to monitor as fast rises can trigger discontent. Spending on food makes up a large proportion of ordinary people’s income.
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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)
AUG. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A pre-election spending spree on various social projects will push Azerbaijan into a budget deficit for the first time in a decade, Bloomberg quoted the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s as saying. Azerbaijan’s presidential election is scheduled for October. Ilham Aliyev is running for a third consecutive term.
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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)
JULY 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik Central Bank has stopped publishing monthly remittance data because it can be manipulated for political gain, media quoted its head, Abdujabbor Shirinov, as saying. Remittances account for roughly 50% of the Tajik economy, the highest proportion in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
JULY 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank scotched rumours of an impending devaluation of the tenge. The tenge is tightly bound to the Russian rouble which is relatively stable. In Feb. 2009, the Kazakh central bank devalued the tenge by 21% shortly after their Russian counterparts devalued the rouble.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
JULY 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan has hired Citigroup, HSBC and JP Morgan to advise it on issuing a $1b Eurobond, Reuters reported quoting unnamed market sources. Kazakhstan has been saying for months that it is weighing up issuing its first sovereign debt since 2000.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Armenian and Iranian chambers of commerce have signed a deal designed to increase business between the countries, media reported. Armenia has been slowly building ties with Iran. Earlier this month, reportedly under pressure from the US, Georgia scrapped visa-free travel for Iranians.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Fresh figures showed that Armenia’s economy is expanding steadily, media reported. Armenia’s economic activity index increased by 4.4% in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2012. Using the same comparison, industrial output was 8.4% high in the first six months of 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The proportion of bad loans in Azerbaijan will drop to 11% from 14% within the next 12 – 18 months, the ratings agency Moody’s said in a new report on the Azerbaijani banking sector. Moody’s regarded bad loans as those overdue by more than 90 days. It gave an upbeat assessment of Azerbaijan’s banking sector and said that real GDP would rise by 3.5% this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
