JUNE 1 2017 (The Bulletin) — Two unnamed Kazakh citizens were injured in a bomb in central Kabul that killed more than 90 people, media reported. Their injuries are not thought to be life- threatening. The bomb ripped through Kabul’s diplomatic quarter damaging several embassies.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
MAY 31 2017 (The Bulletin) — Banks in Kazakhstan are restricting lending to construction companies over concerns that they are failing to pay back loans, the website energyprom.kz reported. It said that at the end of March banks’ loan portfolio to construction projects was 3.8% lower than it had been a year earlier and nearly half the amount of 2008/9. No construction companies commented on the data. The construction sector is one of the drivers of the economy. Any slowdown in activity is a leading indicator that the economy still has some way to go before it recovers from a general malaise since 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
ASTANA , JUNE 5 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s only ambition for its role in hosting peace talks focused on the war in Syria is to find a peaceful solution, deputy foreign minister Roman Vassilenko told The Bulletin in an interview.
He rejected views put out by some commentators that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev was using the process to burnish Astana’s image as an alternative to Geneva for peace negotiations.
“We are not doing this for reputation, this is secondary. The primary thing with Syria for us is to help end the bloodshed,” he said.
Officials from Russia, Turkey, Iran, the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian rebels are due to converge on Astana in June for a fifth round of talks, a process considered important for working towards peace in Syria because it brings together the main parties involved in the conflict.
Political talks under the United Nations are continuing in Geneva, with the Astana process concentrating on finding practical ways to stop the fighting.
Mr Vassilenko said that Kazakhstan had been asked by Turkish President Reccep Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin to host the talks, which started in January, because it had good relations with all the parties and was considered a neutral venue.
“We are not direct participants in the talks. Our role is to be as gracious a hosts as possible,” he said.
Regardless of its ambitions, though, the Syria talks have boosted Kazakhstan’s profile, a limelight that it has previously sought. Kazakhstan is currently a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, it hosted talks centred on Iran’s nuclear programme in 2013 and in 2010 it hosted the first summit meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Europe’s security and democracy watchdog, for 11 years.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
JUNE 5 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakh officials were busy putting the final touches together for EXPO-2017 which Astana is hosting for three months from June 8. President Nursultan Nazarbayev opened a new Ritz-Carlton hotel in Astana, and a new airport terminal and train station were also opened. Media also reported that Kazakh police were getting lessons on how to be polite to tourists.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
MAY 29 2017 (The Bulletin) — Tengizchevroil, Kazakhstan’s largest oil producer, briefly suspended production after a toxic substance was released at its plant. The company, owned by Chevron, ExxonMobil, Lukoil and Kazmunaigas, restarted operations a few hours later. It said that there had been no injuries or damage to equipment from the spill which is blamed on a powercut.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
MAY 31 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan unveiled a new monument marking a famine between 1931-33, blamed on the forced collectivisation by the Soviet Union of the nomadic Kazakhs, that killed an estimated 1.5 m people. The monument, set in a central park in Almaty, shows a Kazakh woman carrying an emaciated boy in her arms.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
MAY 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakh human rights activists said that a law being discussed in parliament is designed to prevent independent candidates from running in presidential elections. The new law, when it is passed, will block “non-serious” candidates from running. Kazakhstan has never held an election considered free or fair by international observers. President Nazarbayev won an election in 2015 with 98% of the vote.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
MAY 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — Analysts accused Kazakhstan of breaking a pledge made to OPEC that it would reduce its oil production in line with an agreed strategy. Data from the International Energy Agency in March showed Kazakh production rising by 40,000 barrels per day to 1.718m barrels per day, despite a pledged decrease. Analysts said that increased production at Kashagan triggered the increase.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
MAY 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — An extradition treaty between Kazakhstan and India has come into effect, Indian media reported. Kazakhstan and India signed the deal in 2015 and it was ratified by their parliaments a year later. The prisoner extradition agreement is significant because it again shows the improvement in relations between Kazakhstan and India. India has pushed to improve links with Central Asia over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
JUNE 5 2017 (The Bulletin) — KAZ Minerals, the Kazakhstan- focused copper producer, has had a bumper year and it looks like it is going to get better. A Credit Suisse stock upgrade to ‘outperform’ from ‘neutral’, helped fuel more excitement around its share price.
The London-listed stock may have ended the week down just over 2% but analysts reckon that it will hit 630p this year. That’s an increase of more than 25% from its current share price of 495p.
Credit Suisse said in its note that over the past few years the share price has been held back on concerns over its profitability, worries that have now evaporated with the Bozshakol mine coming on-stream and the Aktogal mine increasing production at a faster rate than expected.
“The funding risk is now limited even under bearish copper price assumptions,” Credit Suisse wrote in its note. “We think this justifies KAZ moving to a more de-risked valuation and thus upgrade.”
In mid-Feb, KAZ Minerals looked to be set to breakthrough the 600p barrier, hitting 589p before falling back. That was the end of a bull run that had started in mid-2016 when its share price was around 126p, partly pushed up by an increase in copper prices.
Still, there is still some way to go before it can hit the heights to 2012 and 2013 when its shares were valued at over 800p.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
