Tag Archives: food

Children in Armenia stunted, UN WFP reports

MARCH 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A joint report from the UN’s World Food Programme and Armenia’s Statistics Committee said that around 19% of Armenian children under the age of five are stunted, a consequence of widespread malnourishment in the country. The report also noted that around 15% of the surveyed pool is overweight. This is commonly known as a “double malnutrition burden” which can become a public health concern if it spreads across the population. The report concluded that the Armenian government needs to take action to invert this negative trend.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Georgia’s city water chief quits

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alexander Mikeladze, director of Batumi Water, resigned from his post after he became involved in a public scandal. Mr Mikeladze is accused of having abused his position of director of the water distribution company. He allegedly cut off the water supply to a restaurant that failed to provide him the table he wanted. The accusation against Mr Mikeladze comes at a complicated time for worker-management relations in Georgia. With economic conditions worsening, Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili has been talking up the need for harmony.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

McDonalds finally opens its first restaurant in Kazakhstan

MARCH 8 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of people queued for their first taste of McDonalds in Kazakhstan when it opened its inaugural restaurant in Central Asia in Astana.

McDonalds has teamed up with Kazakh businessman Kairat Boranbayev, whose daughter is married to Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s grandson, to bring its burgers to Kazakhstan.

The opening of McDonalds’ restaurant is a boost for Mr Nazarbayev who is looking to bolster support ahead of elections despite a worsening economic slowdown.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Baskin Robbins to enter Tajik market

FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – US ice cream maker Baskin Robbins said it wants to open its first cafe in Tajikistan, although it didn’t say when. Baskin Robbins operates in several countries in the former Soviet Union, including Armenia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. French retailer Auchan opened a store in Dushanbe last year.

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(News report from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)

Finally, McDonald’s set to open in Kazakhstan

ALMATY, FEB. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — McDonald’s said it will open its first restaurant in Kazakhstan on March 8 in central Astana, concluding the US food giant’s lengthy process for entering the Kazakh market.

The company previously said it planned to open its first restaurant in the second half of 2015. After years of rumours as to when McDonald’s would come to Kazakhstan, its first restaurant is now ready to open its doors.

The company plans to open a total of 16 restaurants in the next five years across the country.

In Kazakhstan, McDonald’s will partner with Kairat Boranbayev, a former head of Russo-Kazakh energy joint venture KazRosGas. Mr Boranbayev is also close to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. His daughter Alima married Mr Nazarbayev’s grandson Aisultan.

McDonald’s said Mr Boranbayev’s involvement is purely related to business.

“Kairat [Boranbayev] has a diverse business background and a proven track record of running successful business ventures in his home country as well as our restaurants in Belarus,” Khamzat Khasbulatov, McDonald’s director in Russia, said in a statement.

In Kazakhstan, McDonald’s will face competition from KFC, Burger King and Hardee’s.

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(News report from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Food prices inflate in Kazakhstan

FEB. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Annualised food price inflation in Kazakhstan measured 11.6% for the 12-months to the end of January, the country’s statistics service said. The data highlights just how fast prices have risen in Kazakhstan. It devalued its currency last year, forcing up prices and salaries.

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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Italian Inalca and Kazakh Aktep sign deal

JAN. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Italian beef processing company Inalca and Kazakh company Aktep signed a deal to create a joint venture and build new factories in the country. The new company will increase Aktep’s current production five-fold to 12,000 tonnes per year of meat products. Inalca Eurasia, Inalca’s daughter company, said it will invest €100m ($109m) in the project.

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Editorial: Horse-play in Kyrgyzstan

JAN. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Scottish welder Michael Mcfeat was seeing in the New Year at the canteen in the Kumtor gold mine high up in the Tien Shan mountains when he sent a message back home to friends in Scotland jokingly referring to the chuchuk, a horse-meat sausage, as a horse’s penis.

It was a joke that was intended to raise smiles back home, and it may well have done, but Mcfeat’s error was to make it on an open Facebook account. Locals workers read his joke. They were furious.

Mcfeat is back home now, lucky to have escaped a beating from angry locals, while the Toronto-listed Centerra Gold that runs the mine is dealing with the latest PR setback in its relations with Kyrgyzstan.

The Kyrgyz may be overly sensitive to foreigners laughing at their national identity but, 25 years after the fall of the USSR, it is still a young country. Instead, the onus should be on international companies working in Kyrgyzstan and the rest of Central Asia to educate their foreign staff and also to impose some all important social media rules and guidelines.

After all what the chuchuk is to the Kyrgyz, the haggis is to the Scots.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)

Kazakh government cuts flour subsidies

JAN. 6 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Bread prices are beginning to rise in Kazakhstan after the government cut flour subsidies, people working in the bread-making sector told The Bulletin.

The Kazakh government ended its subsidies for flour on Jan. 1, a move it flagged up in November as part of an overhaul of government spending designed to counter an economic slowdown. It has defended dropping subsidies as fair because it means that
the money saved can be re-focused on benefits for poorer sections of society. Asylzhan Mamytbekov, minister for agriculture, has said that flour subsidies were costing the government 9b tenge a year ($26m).

But the impact of the subsidy cut on bread-makers is already being felt.

In Almaty, Yerbol Beisembayev was going about his business buying bread from factories and re-selling loaves to shops. He said that a couple of factories had already closed because the cut in flour subsidies had made them unprofitable.

“Now everything will depend on who will get the best price for the flour,” he said. “The government has allowed bread (prices) to free float, just like the tenge.”

In August, the Central Bank ditched the tenge’s peg to the US dollar. This sent the value of the tenge crashing by around 40%.

It appears that, for now, bread producers are preferring to soak up the extra cost of the flour rather than pass it on to consumers. Most shops selling bread in Almaty said there had been a small price rise of 5 tenge a loaf — roughly 8%. This below the doubling of prices that analysts had predicted once flour subsidies were cut.

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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan expels Scottish worker after he insults horse-meat sausages

JAN. 5 2016, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan deported a Scottish welder working at the country’s biggest gold mine after he jokingly described a horse-meat sausage delicacy as a horse’s penis, an incident that highlights Kyrgyz sensitivities over their national identity.

Michael Mcfeat wrote next to a photo on his Facebook account of workers lining up at a canteen at the Kumtor gold mine on New Year’s Eve: “The Kyrgyz people queuing out the door for there special delicacy the horses penis!!” (sic).

He was poking fun at the chu- chuk, a sausage made up of horse meat and fat which is boiled and served sliced up before festive meals. Local staff, though, at the gold mine, run by Toronto-listed Centerra Gold, were outraged and called a strike.

Mr Mcfeat, 39, tried to leave the country but was detained at Bishkek airport. Media suggested that he could have been prosecuted for racial hatred but instead he was deported for visa infringements.

Mr Mcfeat did not work directly for Centerra Gold but instead for a sub- contractor.

Still, it has aggravated relations between Centerra Gold and Kyrgyzstan. The two sides are locked in a dispute over ownership.

Adil Turdukulov, a Bishkek-based analyst, said relations between foreign and local staff at Kyrgyzstan’s various mining projects are strained over unequal pay and conditions.

“Tense relations between local and foreign employees of Kumtor have been growing, and this is just an effect,” he said.

Kyrgyzstan has been independent since 1991 and, like other Central Asian states, is sensitive about its identity.

And on the streets of Bishkek, most people thought that Mr Mcfeat had gotten off lightly.

Roza, 62, said that he should think before poking fun at Kyrgyzstan as some of Scotland’s own delicacies sounded foul.

“The Scots also eat sheep’s stomach stuffed with heart, oatmeal, guts and fat,” she said referring to haggis, a Scottish national dish.

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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)