Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan move up ‘Doing Business’ survey

ALMATY, OCT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Central Asian countries fared strikingly well in the latest Doing Business report published by the World Bank, possibly reflecting a drive to attract investment to fight off worsening economic conditions across the region.

The World Bank report singled out Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as among the ten most improved countries in the world. Georgia fell from 15th to 24th place but its overall score was deemed an improvement over last year’s. All other countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus improved their ranking.

According to the World Bank’s assessments. Kazakhstan, 41st in the rankings, made registering a property transfer faster and easier, and Uzbekistan made it easier to start a new business and access credit. It was ranked at 87th, up 54 positions from last year.

In an interview with the Bulletin, Valentina Saltane, Private Sector Development Specialist at the World Bank said Kazakhstan had reformed seven key areas.

“The only area that needs real improvement is cross-border trade,” she said. “Uzbekistan adopted three major reforms, one of which , starting a business, dates back to 2013, but became accessible to private businesses only at the end of 2014.”

Other analysts also said that Kazakhstan had been working hard to speed up various technical reforms.

Alex Nice, Eastern Europe editor at the EIU, said: “Kazakhstan has announced a range of technical reforms, to try to improve the investment climate, in response to the economic slowdown. So it’s not surprising it has moved up the rankings.”

But Mr Nice also sounded a note of caution. He said that developing countries, Kazakhstan included, hire consultants just to advise them on how to move up the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ survey.

“Kazakhstan invests a lot in promoting its image abroad, and may well have hired consultants to advise it on how to achieve a move up the rankings,” Mr Nice continued. “That doesn’t mean that the challenges to doing business in Kazakhstan have fundamentally changed.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Kazakhstan issues new post codes for Astana

OCT. 29 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazpochta, the Kazakh state-owned post service, signed a deal with Astana to switch to alpha- numeric post codes, evidence of the population boom in Kazakhstan’s capital city.

Post codes in Astana will now pinpoint a specific building, rather than just an area, a practice that closely resembles Britain’s custom.

The indexing system vastly increases the number of post codes available to use in Astana and will be rolled out later this year in some of the city’s new industrial developments, said Bagdat Musin, Kazpochta’s chairman.

“The new system will facilitate not only postmen, but also emergency workers,” he said.

With an official population of 860,000, doubling in the past decade, Astana has grown fast.

But it remains something of a commuter city. At the weekend Astana hollows out as the middle class head to Almaty to eat, drink, relax and party.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Tele2 profits in Kazakhstan increase by 34%

OCT. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swedish mobile operator Tele2 posted a 34% increase in revenues at its Kazakh subsidiary in Q3 2015, compared to the same period last year. The increase was partly due to the fall in the value of the tenge. Earlier in September, Pietari Kivikko, chairman of Tele2’s Kazakh subsidiary, had predicted a fall in revenues for all telecoms companies in Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Kazakh paper manufacturer accuses former directors

OCT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Britain’s High Court decline an appeal by Maksat Arip and Baglan Zhunus, two former directors of Kazakh paper manufacturer Kagazy, against freezing their assets. Kagazy has accused Mr Arip and Mr Zhunus of misappropriating company funds in connection with Kagazy’s 2007 IPO in London and filed a $280m lawsuit. The trial will begin in April 2017.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Industrial investment slows in Kazakhstan

OCT. 16 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — In an effort to cut spending, Kazakhstan appears to have reduced industrial investments by 23% in the first nine months of the year, the ranking.kz website reported, an indication of the worsening economic turmoil hitting the country.

In Jan.-Sept. 2015, the government invested 220.7b tenge ($797m) in fixed industrial assets, compared to 285b in the same period last year. The sharpest decline was to public utilities.

Last November, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev unveiled the Nurly Zhol (bright path), a $24b state programme designed to support industrial and infrastructure projects in the country.

The economic decline, triggered by the fall in oil prices and sanctions on Russia, has hit this ambitious target. Kazakhstan’s officials are beginning to talk more seriously about a prolonged economic decline.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Problems at Kazakhstan’s Kcell weigh down TeliaSonera profit

OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swedish telecoms company Telia- Sonera said 2015 profit will be lower than expected due to price competition in Kazakhstan and that it is also struggling to sell its assets in Uzbekistan.

The profit warning will play badly for TeliaSonera which said last month that it wanted to sell its subsidiaries in Eurasia, of which Kcell and Ucell are the biggest.

In Jan.-Sept. 2015, Kcell’s profits fell 13% compared to the same period last year, a drop that Johan Dennelind, TeliaSonera’s CEO, blamed on competition and the government’s decision to let the tenge float free against the US dollar in August.

But Kazakhstan is not TeliaSon- era’s only problem in Central Asia. Marred by corruption allegations, TeliaSonera’s operations in

Uzbekistan have become a dead- weight, dragging the sale of the company’s assets.

“Selling Uzbekistan isn’t an easy task,” Mr Dennelind was quoted as saying in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

US and Dutch prosecutors are investigating whether TeliaSonera paid bribes to secure mobile licences in Uzbekistan in 2007 and 2008.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan spat

OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkmen foreign ministry complained to Kazakhstan about a statement made by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Astana last week when he alleged that there was fighting on the Turkmen-Afghan border. Media in Afghanistan reported fighting between the Taliban and government forces. Turkmenistan has refuted claims the fighting threatens its borders.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Criticism of Kazakhstan’s draft NGO law builds up

OCT. 21 2015, ASTANA (The Conway Bulletin) — International human rights groups criticised Kazakhstan’s draft bill on NGOs as an attempt to seriously restrict civil society’s activities.

The new bill would hand the government control of foreign grants and also restrict the operational sphere of NGOs.

Dunja Mijatovic, OSCE representative on freedom of the media, said: “Introducing legislation that would put NGOs under strict governmental supervision, including the control of foreign grants, is worrying for civil society actors in general”.

The OSCE is Europe’s intergovernmental democracy watchdog.

The government has said that it needs clearer oversight over how NGOs operate in the country. Its detractors, though, have said it is far too similar to a bill introduced by Russia a few years ago.

Gulmira Birzhanova, a lawyer and expert in national and international media law, who works in the Legal Media Center NGO in Astana, said the bill contradicted basic constitutional rights.

“The proposed legislation violates freedom of assembly as stated in our Constitution,” Ms Birzhanova told the Bulletin in an interview.

Under the new law, the ministry of culture and sports will be in charge of assigning funds, which Ms Birzhanova said would hand it the ultimate control over NGOs’ operations.

“The ministry will act as a central operator that will distribute finances and grants to NGOs no matter if they receive it from the governmental budget or from international sources,” she said. “This creates a thorny situation because NGOs are often engaged in disputes against the government.”

Analysts have said that despite the criticism of the bill, the Kazakh parliament may be looking to turn it into law by the end of the year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

KazTransOil liquidates Georgian subsidiary

OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — After a lengthy legal spat, Kazakhstan’s oil pipeline company KazTransOil (KTO) liquidated Batumi Terminals Ltd, its subsidiary in Georgia. Earlier in March, a Georgian court seized Batumi Terminals’ assets on charges that it had abused its monopolistic position. The charges were eventually dropped.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Markets: Trade turnover among Eurasian Economic Union members falls

OCT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Eurasian Economic Commission published the latest statistics on trade turnover among EEU countries. It made for interesting, if also distressing, reading.

Trade among Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan was down by a quarter in Jan.-Aug. 2015, compared to the same period last year.

By volume, Russia was the country that suffered the largest fall, amounting to over $4b. In terms of percentage, however, all other countries except for Kyrgyzstan fared worse — Kyrgyzstan acceded as a full member only in August, so its numbers could be misleading.

Curiously, Armenia increased trade turnover with non-EEU countries such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan by over 40%.

In the two periods analysed by the Commission, oil prices were significantly different. And this can be clearly seen in Kazakhstan’s statistics, which show a sharp fall in exports to Italy, China and Russia, its main trade partners by volume. In particular, the value of Kazakhstan’s exports were reduced by the double whammy of lower oil prices and the decrease in the value of the tenge after the government abandoned its peg to the US dollar.

It is undeniable that the rouble crisis and the fall in oil prices have affected the Eurasian region. And the EEU has been unabel to contain the spill-over effects on its members.

OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) —

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)