JAN. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) plans to increase the number of loans it gives to small and medium sized businesses in Azerbaijan by extending the number of banks it works with. Last year ADB gave AccessBank a five year $50m loan specifically to lend to companies in rural areas.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) plans to invest $500m into projects run by the Azerbaijani state over the next three years, media quoted the organisation’s representative in Baku, Olly Norojono, as saying. Mr Norojono also said that the ADB’s investment portfolio in Azerbaijan was currently $1.2b up from $500m in 2010.
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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)
DEC. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank, based in Manila, has agreed to give Tajikistan $136m to upgrade one of its biggest hydropower plants, media reported. This is the largest single ADB loan to Tajikistan. Tajikistan is heavily reliant on hydropower for its electricity. There are frequent shortages during winter.
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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)
NOV. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Bank’s IFC is considering a loan to Britain’s Virgin Media to help it enter a clutch of new markets — including Kazakhstan — media reported.
Virgin Media’s main shareholder is the flamboyant entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and its potential entry into Kazakhstan should be equally colourful.
All this is good news for Kazakhstan’s mobile sector, currently dominated by a joint-venture between Sweden’s TeliaSonera and Kazakhtelecom and another joint-venture between Russia’s VimpelCom and a private Kazakh company, and its growing hoard of mobile users.
It also groups Kazakhstan with more traditional emerging markets such as Turkey, Poland and Russia.
Kazakhstan’s mobile phone sector has been growing fast and looks set to continue to grow. Mobile phone penetration is rising rapidly in Kazakhstan — recent figures put the rate at 130%. Like other emerging markets, mobile phones have become the must-have accessory for the upwardly mobile, if that is the correct term.
BeMyMobile ltd, controlled by Virgin Mobile Central & Eastern Europe, officially applied to the IFC for the loan. If the bid to the IFC is successful, Virgin will expand as a provider of wireless services into Poland and Turkey first and will prepare to break into the Russian and Kazakh markets. It wants to be a so-called virtual provider. This mean that it won’t build any new infrastructure but repackage existing deals.
Virgin Media signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Kazakhtelecom during British PM David Cameron’s visit to Kazakhstan at the end of June.
If Virgin media does enter Kazakhstan it may also offer other services such as internet and satellite television, similar to its current operations in Britain.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)
NOV. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Bank’s IFC is considering giving Britain’s Virgin Media a loan to help it expand into a group of emerging markets including Kazakhstan, media reported. Virgin Media signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhtelecom earlier this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)
NOV. 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Concluding its mission to Azerbaijan, the IMF said that the country’s economy was moving in the right direction although it needed to restructure its biggest bank, the state-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 161, published on Nov. 20 2013)
NOV. 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has made decent economic progress but more needs to be done to continue to encourage business to develop, the IMF said in a statement after it concluded an assessment of the country’s economy.
The IMF said in general it supported the Azerbaijani Central Bank’s plan to force banks to strengthen their capitalisation levels. It was concerned, though, about the health of the state-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA).
“The mission calls for combining this capitalisation with the restructuring of this bank (the IBA) in line with internationally accepted practices,” the IMF said in a statement.
The IBA is so large and important to Azerbaijan’s banking sector, the IMF explained, that it needs to be reformed. Earlier this year, the IBA said it would increase its capitalisation levels to 500 million Manat (about $640 million).
In December 2012, the Fitch ratings agency downgraded the IBA’s credit rating because it said its capitalisation levels were too low.
Overall, the IMF said the Azerbaijani authorities were on the right track with reducing non-oil deficit levels.
“Azerbaijan’s near-term economic prospects are generally favourable, with overall gross domestic product growth projected at 5% in 2013 and 2014, following the successful stabilization of oil output,” the IMF concluded.
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(News report from Issue No. 161, published on Nov. 20 2013)
OCT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $200m loan to help build houses in rural Uzbekistan, media reported. ADB’s loan underscores the need for better housing outside Uzbekistan’s main cities. The loan is part of $500m tranche agreed between ADB and Uzbekistan in 2011.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Bank has approved a $53.25m loan to Azerbaijan’s agriculture sector, the head of its office in Baku Larisa Leshchenko told media. The loan will be used to improve agricultural businesses’ access to finance and to also modernise equipment. Azerbaijan has made boosting its agriculture sector a priority.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
SEPT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s railway network modernisation plan is picking up speed.
Earlier this year, the World Bank said it would finance an upgrade to Azerbaijan’s rail network. Azerbaijani officials said an upgrade was vital to speed up the route, used to shift wagons full of goods from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea.
One of the areas that needed attention was signalling. Now, Azerbaijan’s government has said it has awarded a contract worth $288m to a consortium including Canada’s Bombardier. Bombardier will install new signalling equipment along the 503km track running from Baku to Boyuk Kesik on the Georgian border. This is roughly 17% of Azerbaijan’s total railway track.
Media also reported that French train maker Alstom, and other companies, are looking to win business in Azerbaijan off the back of the rail modernisation plan.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
