Tag Archives: economy

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR transfers

APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR transferred 109m manat ($72m) to the government’s budget in March, a drop of around 4% from the same month in 2015, media reported. The drop high- lights the continued pressure that SOCAR and the rest of the Azerbaijani economy is under from the low global oil prices. In US dollar terms, the drop is even more severe. Last year, the manat lost half its value.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Kazakh oil production to drop

APRIL 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – OPEC, a club of oil exporting countries, and the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Kazakhstan’s oil output will decline this year. OPEC said Kazakh production will slow by 3.2% to 1.55m barrels/day. The EIA, which uses different parameters in its calculations, said it would fall 1.2% to 1.71m barrels/day.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Kyrgyz GDP declines

APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s GDP stood at 79b som ($1.15b) in the first quarter of the year, a decrease of 4.9% compared to the same period last year, the national statistics committee said. Officials blamed industrial output and precious metals production for the decline. Without accounting for the Kumtor gold mine, the country would have seen its GDP increase by 1%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Kazakh President signs Iran deal

APRIL 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev flew to Tehran to meet with President Hassan Rouhani sign deals worth around $1b, giving Kazakhstan-Iran economic ties a major boost. Kazakhstan has been forthright at trying to boost economic ties with Iran since sanctions were relaxed earlier this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Tajik and Kyrgyz migration start to rise

APRIL 8 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Migration from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Russian cities rose in April, signalling an improvement in Russia’s economy and also, potentially, giving all-important remittance flows back to Central Asia a boost.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan marked an increase of 0.2% and 1.8% in the number of migrants in Russia compared to the same time last year, according to official statistics from the Russian Federal Migration Service. It recorded its data on April 6.

The rise may be small but it is important as it breaks a downward trend over the past 18 months. Also, official figures only report on a portion of the total migrant population as a large part of it is illegal. When official statistics go up, analysts believe the overall number of migrants grows even faster.

Together with Uzbekistan, which recorded the same number of people living in Russia this year as 2015, people from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan represent the most important migrant populations from Central Asia. The home countries of these migrant workers depend heavily on remittances from their migrant workers.

Migrant numbers to Russia had slowed significantly in the past two years due to tougher migration policies and a sharp depreciation in the rouble at the end of 2014, linked to a fall in oil prices and a recession. The drop in the value of the rouble also depressed the value of remittances that migrants were sending home.

This year, though, the rouble has gained around 17% against the US dollar since the low point of 81/$1 in mid-January and the economic situation in Russia appears to have improved enough to attract migrants once again.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Kazakh agriculture exports boom

APRIL 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Exports of agricultural products from Kazakhstan increased by 33% in 2015, Yeremek Kosherbayev, vice minister of agriculture said. Media didn’t report his reasons for the sharp increase but Kazakhstan has been investing heavily in boosting its efficiency in agriculture. One of its biggest exports, now, is wheat.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Editorial: Uzbek buses

APRIL 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – People in Uzbekistan will find it harder to pay both their utility bills and bus fares from this month.

The government has ordered price increases across the board from April 1, signalling latent inflation in its economy.

Utility prices went up around 8.5% but bus prices have risen by 20% and this is going to be significant. Public transport in Tashkent delivers several hundreds thousand passenger journeys every day, making bus ticket prices a highly sensitive issue.

The city government blamed high fuel prices for the new ticket price of 1,200 sum ($0.41 at the official rate).

Officially, the Uzbek sum has lost only 10% of its value over the past six months against the US dollar, but Black Market rates tell a different story.

The Uzbek currency is spiralling downwards and this will push up inflation. Accurate economic data is hard to come by from Uzbekistan but there is no arguing with the higher bus prices. This is the accurate inflation measure that is needed to gauge price rises in Uzbekistan.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

FDI grows in Kyrgyzstan

APRIL 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz PM Temir Sariyev told Parliament that FDI in Kyrgyzstan grew by 12.6% to $818.8m in 2015 compared to the previous year. FDI from countries in the Former Soviet Union grew more slowly at 2.8%, due to the economic crisis that has hit the region. FDI from the UK increased by 3.5 times to $190m. FDI from China halved.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Inflation climbs in Kazakhstan

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In March, consumer prices continued to increase in Kazakhstan, according to the National Statistics Committee. Inflation stood at 0.5% in March alone and the annualised level now stands at 15.7%, its highest since 2009. Analysts have said that inflation in Kazakhstan will continue to climb.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

FDI for 2015 drops in Azerbaijan

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Foreign direct investment in Azerbaijan dropped 6.3% last year to $7.5b, media quoted data from the government’s statistic committee as saying. The statistics add more evidence, although it is barely needed, of the sharp economic downturn that Azerbaijan, and other countries in the region, has had to deal with.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)