AUG. 31 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia is unwilling to lift a ban on a number of Georgian products, Georgian Minister for Economic Development, Vera Kobalia, told local media. Her comments come shortly before vital WTO talks between Russia and Georgia, due to restart in Switzerland on Sept. 12. Georgia is the last country blocking Russia’s WTO membership.
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(News report from Issue No. 55, published on Sept. 6 2011)
SEPT. 6 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – After months of negotiations, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon announced on Sept. 2 that Russia would indeed extend the lease on its military bases in Tajikistan by 49 years.
Reuters also reported, without giving details, that Russian forces would once again patrol the Tajik-Afghan border — a deal Russia has been pushing for all year. The details still need to be thrashed out, including just how much Russia will pay for the bases, but the announcement was a significant milestone.
The deals secure Russia’s military might on the fringe of Central Asia where control has become increasingly important. NATO plans to withdraw from Afghanistan over the next couple of years and the Central Asian states have been worried about Taliban forces moving northwards.
Russia quit patrolling the Tajik-Afghan border in 2005 but has said throughout the year it wants to regain control to stem the drugs flowing from Afghanistan.
The Kremlin has also been thinking strategically about its military bases and has extended leases on large bases in Armenia and Ukraine. Its deployment in Tajikistan is one of its biggest with roughly 7,000 soldiers and hundreds of tanks and planes stationed there.
Both China and India have bolstered their economic, diplomatic and military reach in Central Asia over the last few years, so for Russia to secure its long-term hold on its military bases in Tajikistan represents a significant achievement.
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(News report from Issue No. 55, published on Sept. 6 2011)
SEPT. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with Russian state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Kyrgyz PM Almazbek Atambayev again said Kyrgyzstan was ready to join the Russia-Kazakhstan-Belarus customs union. Many observers say the union is a Russian attempt to increase its influence over its neighbours.
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(News report from Issue No. 55, published on Sept. 6 2011)
AUG. 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – It may have been a formality but it was a symbolically significant one. On Aug. 22 2011, Turkey’s new parliament nullified 898 draft laws the previous parliament had failed to ratify. Among these were two on improving relations with Armenia.
Both these draft laws had languished in Turkey’s parliament since Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul shook hands in Zurich in Oct. 2009 and pledged that after years of animosity the neighbours would finally make up.
Officially scrapped now, the draft laws have little chance in the short term of making their way back on to the Turkish Parliament’s agenda. In Armenia, the laws hadn’t even made it that far. So much for the Armenia-Turkey rapprochement, then.
And there had been such high hopes. But, though the countries’ leaders had shaken hands, spoken in public about the need for improved relations and watched football matches together, in reality rapprochement drifted off after only a few months.
The issues are so entrenched. At its heart is an argument over whether the Turkish Ottoman Empire at the end of the World War I committed genocide against Armenians. The Turks say thousands died on both sides of the fighting. The Armenians say Turks killed Armenians systematically.
Turkey is also a natural ally of Azerbaijan which is still officially at war with Armenia over the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Always complex, the Armenia-Turkey rapprochement is now also officially off.
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(News report from Issue No. 54, published on Aug. 30 2011)
AUG. 12 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Central Bank said it might revise upwards its inflation target for 2011 because of high food and energy prices. The Bank had forecast inflation for 2011 between 6% and 8%. Central Asia has been hit hard by inflation and analysts say rising prices for food and utilities could trigger unrest.
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(News report from Issue No. 53, published on Aug. 17 2011)
AUG. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s GDP grew by 8% in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2010, Reuters quoted state media as saying. The report also said inflation had grown by 3.6% between Jan. and June. Uzbekistan operates a relatively closed economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 52, published on Aug. 10 2011)
AUG. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Attention may have focused on Western Europe and the US but Central Asia’s biggest financial centre, Kazakhstan, did not escape the turmoil that has gripped world financial markets over the last week.
A ratings downgrade for the United States and worries about eurozone debt have spooked investors. There has been a flight to safety — gold and the Swiss Franc have boomed — as investors have become more wary of risk. Not good news for emerging markets, then.
Tellingly, Kazakhstan has been one of the worst hit stock markets in the world. Between Aug. 1 – 9 Bloomberg data showed the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) lost about 22% of its value.
To throw in a few numbers, KASE — which includes the state oil and gas company Kazmunaigas, miner ENRC, copper producer Kazakhmys and the country’s biggest banks — is now valued at around 63% of its mid-February value. Many of the companies listed on KASE have their main listing on the London Stock Exchange where the drop was far less dramatic.
KASE recovered 7% of its value on Aug. 10 but it hasn’t been this low since the start of March 2009 when the world was tentatively starting to emerge from the global financial slowdown.
Of course volatile oil prices play their part in pushing KASE up and down but so does general investor sentiment and they worry about emerging market risk.
KASE may be a relatively minor stock market but it is still a decent weather mast. That said, emerging markets with their potential for high growth rates will always attract investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 52, published on Aug. 10 2011)
JULY 29 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a scene reminiscent of Soviet times, several central bankers in Turkmenistan admitted during a broadcast on state television that they had stolen millions of dollars, news agencies reported. The bankers were given lengthy prison sentences.
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(News report from Issue No. 51, published on Aug. 2 2011)
JULY 29 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Baku to discuss the countries’ close economic and military ties. The trip was Erdogan’s second overseas trip since winning an election in June and underlined both strong Azerbaijani-Turkish links and recent setbacks in talks between Armenia and Turkey.
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(News report from Issue No. 51, published on Aug. 2 2011)
AUG. 1 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s GDP grew by 7.3% in 2010, a 0.3% increase from an earlier estimate, the state statistics agency said. In 2009, Kazakhstan’s GDP growth was 1.2%. This annual GDP growth jump reflects the country’s rebound from the global economic slowdown.
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(News report from Issue No. 51, published on Aug. 2 2011)
