Tag Archives: government

Tajikistan cuts electricity exports

DEC. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s public utilities company Barqi Tojik said it had stopped exporting electricity to Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan because of a seasonal shortage of supply, showing the weakness of Tajikistan’s power generating infrastructure.

The decision to halt exports also poses major questions over Tajikistan’s plans to become a regional power exporter. Only last week, foreign ministers from the countries involved in the CASA-1000 project signed a final agreement in Istanbul which should power the project forward.

The CASA-1000 project will link Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan, which is short in power, via Afghanistan.

The export cut by Barqi Tojik is a routine measure to satisfy domestic demand during the peak winter season but the company said hydro-power plants suffered from lower- than-normal production this year.

“Water levels are today roughly 10% lower than last year,” said Barqi Tojik in a statement on Dec. 8.

For CASA-1000 to be a success, Tajikistan needs to build more hydropower capacity.

Shutting off power supplies to Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan during the winter months highlights this issue.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)

Georgian president appoints new head of pres. admin

DEC. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili appointed Giorgi Abashishvili, his economics adviser, as head of his presidential administration. Media said Mr Abashishvili was the third head of the presidential administration since Mr Margvelashvili took office in 2013.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)

Kazakh president signs NGO law

DEC. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev signed into law the creation of an agency under the ministry of justice that will be charged with the responsibility of approving funding to non-government agencies. The law has proved controversial with campaigners saying that it is similar to a law introduced by Russia which banned NGOs from taking funding from foreign organisations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)

Tajik court sentences IRPT activist

NOV. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Tajikistan handed a 9-1⁄2 year prison sentence to an activist of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) which, until September, had been the country’s only opposition party. Hasan Rahimov had been the IRPT chief in the southern Farkhor district. He is the first of two dozen IRPT activists to stand trial on various terrorism charges. The IRPT says the charges are politically motivated.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)

Turkmen authorities organise choir record

NOV. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Officials in Turkmenistan organised 4,166 people to sing a song written by Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, AP news agency reported, breaking a previous world record for the largest choir. The choir sung in a giant yurt.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)

Kazakh government to cut oil exports

NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a move designed to help oil exporters, the Kazakh government said it would cut export duty on a tonne of oil to $40 from $60. Some exporters in Kazakhstan have simply stopped production until either oil prices improved or taxes were cut.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

Azerbaijan’s president prepares economy for sustained downturn

NOV. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev appeared to be preparing his country for a prolonged economic slump when he ordered the government to triple the amount of debt that it could take on.

He also told the Central Bank that it had to increase the amount of capital that it holds to 500m manat ($478m) up from 10m manat.

Both orders appear to be designed to preempt a sustained economic slowdown. The increase in the amount of debt that the Azerbaijani government can accrue to 4.5b manat and the rise in the Central Bank’s working capital should soften the impact of oil prices staying low.

Like the rest of the region Azerbaijan is trying to cope with a collapse in oil prices.

The price of a barrel of oil has more than halved in the past year. For Azerbaijan, whose economy is reliant on oil sales, the impact has been heavy. It has cut its budget and dropped various infrastructure projects to save cash.

Last week a fire at an internet data centre knocked Azerbaijan off the World Wide Web, highlighting just how fragile and investment-needy some of Azerbaijan’s infrastructure it.

In June, the IMF said Azerbaijan’s economy would grow by only 1.8% this year, a sharp fall from the rapid growth of a few years ago. It also said there would be sluggish growth until 2020. Mr Aliyev’s orders appear to confirm this view.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

Kazakh investment Nurly Zhol slows

NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Incompetent local administrations have delayed the Kazakh government’s centrepiece $9b Nurly Zhol infrastructure investment policy, Yerbolat Dossayev, Kazakhstan’s minister of economy, said. Nurly Zhol, which means bright path, was announced last year and was supposed to transform the Kazakh economy. It has failed to have an impact.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

IMF keen on privatisations in Kazakhstan

NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF applauded Kazakhstan’s plans to sell off chunks of up to 50% in 43 high profile state-owned companies.

In a report, the IMF also said that ditching the tenge’s peg to the US dollar in August will push up inflation in the short term.

“The decision to float the exchange rate in August, followed by the introduction of a new policy interest rate (base rate) as the new monetary policy anchor in September, set in motion the process of modernizing the monetary policy framework,” the IMF said in its report.

Under pressure from depressed oil prices and a fall in the value of the rouble, the Kazakh Central Bank dropped its peg to the US dollar in August. The tenge plunged in value.

Strapped for cash, the Kazakh government said earlier this month that it wanted to sell off chunks of its biggest companies to private investors. The plan received a qualified endorsement from the IMF.

“We welcome these initiatives and the authorities’ objective of implementing the privatisation program competitively and in a way that ensures genuine private ownership and control,” it said.

The issue for investors is which stock market the government lists the shares on.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)

Kyrgyz prison chief hangs

NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The warden in charge of the jail from which nine prisoners escaped last month has been found hanged in his cell, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Imankul Teltaev had been in pre-trial detention waiting for this trial on charges linked to the mass escape.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)