MARCH 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan officials said the new 146km Yoloten-Tahtabazar power transmission line to Afghanistan has started operations, reinforcing another electricity supply route into South Asia from Central Asia. Turkmenistan produced 22.5b kWh in 2015 and it is looking to increase both production and export.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Russian Duma ratified an inter- governmental agreement to pardon most of Uzbekistan’s debt. Uzbekistan will now pay $25m of its $889m debt to Russia but it will also withdraw any claims to the Soviet Diamond Fund which contains some of the world’s most expensive jewellery from the Tsarist era. Russia and Uzbekistan agreed to scrap the debt in November 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)
MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The UK government introduced a new Super Priority visa service for citizens of Kazakhstan. The new service will cost an extra £750 ($1,060) in addition to the consular fees and will ensure delivery within 24 hours. The government also said the new process can be used to apply for long term, multi- entry visas. “Last year the UK issued over 15,000 UK visas for Kazakhstani citizens,” Carolyn Browne, British ambassador to Kazakhstan said in a statement. London is a favoured destination for Kazakhstan’s wealthy.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The lobby group Italy-South Ossetia Friendship Society said it will open what it described an embassy for the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia in Rome in early April. After the Russian news agency Sputnik broke the news, the Georgian ministry of interior launched an investigation. Only a handful of countries, including Russia, have recognised South Ossetia as independent, after a brief war was fought in 2008. Italy has not recognised South Ossetia as an independent state.
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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)
MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan hinted that a final decision on the long-running negotiations with Russia over gas prices would be made when Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev visits Yerevan next month. Armenia imports all its gas from Russia, one of its most important allies, and has asked for a cut in price to help it cope with an economic downturn. Russia has agreed a cut but not as drastic as Armenia had wanted.
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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In the past weeks, European Union representatives had said soothing, nice words to Azerbaijan’s leadership, especially in light of its key participation in the Southern Gas Corridor infrastructure complex, which will bring Caspian Sea gas to Europe by 2019.
Human rights advocates in the West had lobbied loudly for a hardline position regarding the government’s crackdown on political freedoms.
But the EU chose to avoid the critical topic and went on talking business.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev’s decision to free some political prisoners must be read as a payment in kind to the EU’s soft hand on human rights.
While welcoming the gesture, people in Azerbaijan are still waiting for the release of Ilgar Mammadov, Khadija Ismayilova and Intigam Aliyev, three political prisoners that were not pardoned.
By pardoning political prisoners, the government is holding out an olive branch towards the West, more than towards domestic actors. The struggle for them, for independent media and for opposition parties, is not over just yet.
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Editorial from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
MARCH 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan handed over five Iranians it was holding in jail in return for six Azerbaijanis imprisoned in Iran, the latest prisoner swap between the two neighbours. Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have improved dramatically over the past couple of years. As well as swapping prisoners, Azerbaijan has been building relations with Iran and signing deals in various sectors including transport and power.
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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
MARCH 14 2016, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s President Almazbek Atambayev fired Nursulu Akhmetova, one of the most prominent women in Kyrgyz finance, as head of the Kyrgyz-Russian Development Fund barely a year after she took the job.
The $500m Kyrgyz-Russian Development Fund was set up last February to smooth Kyrgyzstan’s entry into the Eurasian Economic Union.
It was supposed to hand out grants and cheap loans to businesses to help them make the transition. Instead, in the seven months since Kyrgyzstan became a Eurasian Economic Union member, the Kyrgyz- Russian Fund has become a source for frustration for Kyrgyz businesses.
News reports quoted Mr Atambayev saying at her sacking: “I’ve spoken about this a few times with the Prime Minister. The Fund has not developed well, and the Government did not make it to work well.”
Kyrgyz businesses have accused the fund of changing the rules and making cash available only to large companies rather than small businesses.
Under Ms Akhmetova, the Fund had insisted that to qualify for loans or grants, businesses had to take out a minimum loan of $3m, contributing 20% itself.
For Mr Atambayev, the sacking is a personal disappointment. Before getting the job, on a three year contract, Ms Akhmetova had been head of the analytical department of the Presidential Administration. She was also its deputy director. Mr Atambayev would have worked with Ms Akhemetova personally.
Her replacement was named as Kubanychbek Kulmatov, a former mayor of Bishkek.
Analyst Emil Juraev said that the Fund still had a role to play if it can regain credibility under new leadership.
“The Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund, if used well, can certainly have a significant positive effect on economic development of Kyrgyzstan,” he said. “However, so far there have been many reasons for concern about the ability of Kyrgyzstan to effectively and freely manage the funds.”
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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
MARCH 17 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state-owned electricity company Samruk Energo said it resumed deliveries of electricity to Russia after cross-border trade was suspended in November 2014 due to the sharp depreciation of the rouble against the tenge.
Over the past six months the tenge has lost around 50% of its value, bringing it into equilibrium with the rouble and making cross-border trade viable again. Kazakhstan had stubbornly stuck to a US dollar peg despite a fall in global oil prices and a recession in Russia. It ditched this peg in August.
These electricity trades are important as they are more evidence of a normalisation of trade ties between Kazakhstan and Russia after a series of rows last year which, at their root, were triggered by the currency imbalance. Power supply contracts between Samruk Energo and Inter RAO are denominated in roubles which hit their value for Samruk Energo when the rouble fell heavily against the tenge.
Samruk Energo said it wants to export 1.8b kWh to Russia in 2016, slightly less than it exported in 2014. In 2013 power exports to Russia had been around 2.5b kWh.
The two power stations at Ekibas- tuz, in north-eastern Kazakhstan, will provide the electricity and Samruk Energo said the second unit at Eki- bastuz was also put into operation.
“Free capacity at Ekibastuz GRES- 1 and GRES-2 was allocated to export deliveries,” Almassadam Satkaliyev, Samruk Energo chairman, said in a statement.
The first unit is owned by Samruk Energo and Ekibastuz Holding, controlled by Kazakhmys.
GRES-2, the second unit at Eki- bastuz, is jointly owned by Samruk Energo and Russia’s Inter RAO.
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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has not been invited to a meeting in Qatar set for April 17 where major world oil suppliers are due to discuss freezing output levels at their current rates, energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said. The apparent snub for the FSU’s second biggest oil producer underlines its role as an oil price taker rather than an oil price maker. Oil producing nations are trying to coordinate a response to drag oil prices off record lows.
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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)
