Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan cuts oil export tax

>>Slump in global oil prices triggers tax cut>>

FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will slash its oil export duty by 25% to help companies manage a sharp drop in energy prices, economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev said.

The measure is part of a package of proposals designed to help Kazakhstan’s economy weather an increasingly nasty economic downturn. Energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik also said that taxes on miners would be cut soon.

Currently oil exporters pay $80 to ship a tonne of oil out of Kazakhstan. The government will cut this to $60.

It’s a drastic step for Kazakhstan which still relies heavily on oil exports for its revenue. Drastic but, possibly, unavoidable. Oil prices have halved in the past seven months, forcing spending cut backs and budget cuts.

The sharp drop in oil prices also creates another problem for Kazakhstan. It makes the more expensive projects, such as the Kashagan project in the Caspian Sea, unprofitable. Dropping export tax may go some way to addressing this problem.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

New charges against reporter

FEB. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Azerbaijan have brought new charges against RFE/RL reporter Khadija Ismayilova, media reported. Ms Ismayilova, a critic of the government, is in pre-trial detention for coaxing a journalist into a suicide attempt. She will now also face charges of tax evasion and embezzlement.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Tengiz output to rise

FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tengizchevroil, a Kazakh joint-venture with Chevron, is expected to boost oil output by 42% to 38m tonnes by 2021, Kazakh energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said. This is important news for Kazakhstan as Tengizchevroil is its biggest single oil producer.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Made in Kazakhstan label

FEB. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government has launched a new initiative to promote domestic industries which will include a clothing label marked “Made in Kazakhstan”, officials said. Earlier President Nursultan Nazarbayev had said more people should buy Kazakh goods.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Kazakhstan to go for early elections

>>Early vote is a tried and tested strategy>>

FEB. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev looks set to bring forward a presidential election by a year, a move designed to impose stability during a turbulent economic period.

The Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan asked parliament to bring forward a presidential election from 2016 to this spring.

“It is crucial to strengthen the economy and ensure the continuity of the current policy by holding an early election,” the assembly, a constitutional body headed by Mr Nazarbayev, said in a statement.

Since then the country’s biggest political party Nur Otan has voiced its support for an early election.

The dire economic situation has been a constant headache for the Kazakh leadership in the past few months, especially after the plunge in oil prices and the collapse of the Russian rouble.

The Kazakh elite view extending Mr Nazarbayev’s term in office by another five years as a way of imposing stability. Kazakhstan, also, has form with bringing elections forward. It brought an election in 2011 forward. Mr Nazarbayev won with 96% of the votes.

Experts were waiting for an announcement of this sort.

Kazakhstan’s political watchers had often ended conversations with Bulletin correspondents with: “We are waiting for an early election, to guarantee medium-term stability.”

It appears that their predictions have been borne out. It still remains to be seen, though, whether these elections will calm an increasingly turbulent political and economic environment.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Kazakh government spending slashed

FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev said that all government spending, excluding social projects, would be cut by 10% to cope with the economic slowdown, media reported. He made a point, though, of denying that there was an economic crisis in Kazakhstan.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Senior Kazakh officials fined for corruption

FEB. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Kazakhstan convicted the former head of the anti-monopoly commission, Murat Ospanov, of corruption and ordered him to pay a $6m fine. Government prosecutors had wanted an 11-year jail sentence. Kazakhstan has prosecuted several government officials in an aggressive anti-corruption campaign over the past year.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Architecture in Kazakhstan stirs passions

>>A row over a blog discussing Almaty’s architecture hits a sensitive nerve>>

ALMATY, FEB. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — “This is sick,” one commentator wrote. “You’re a monster,” wrote another.”

The offending photograph showed an old cottage here in Almaty decked in fine Russian vernacular architecture: carved eaves called karnizy, ornate window frames called nalichniki.

The picture had been, for full-disclosure, run through a muddy Instagram filter, and the house wasn’t in the best of shape. Yet the dissenting faction, trolls or otherwise, couldn’t find anything to admire.

“Why don’t you show our Al-Farabi Boulevard instead?” one user offered. “We’ve got all the fanciest cars!”

I never thought a site about Almaty’s overlooked architecture would be so divisive. Yet the project, Walking Almaty, has revealed a certain fault line in the attitudes of local denizens.

For those born after the fall of the USSR in 1991, the Soviet stuff I celebrated was something of an embarrassment and anything old acted as a painful, rusty reminder. Al Farabi Boulevard at the southern end of town, with its Prada store and glass and steel feel, is the aspirational icon of this crowd.

Meanwhile, old-timers who still call the city by its Russian name of Alma-Ata converse through online forums. For them, the past is something lived, not something to be shirked, and as facades of faux-granite rise, they feel as disrespected as the haters I witnessed on Instagram.

One youthful user recently posted online a picture of a rebuilt cottage, its wooden fretwork ripped off, its new paint job unsubtle. The old-timers responded in chorus. “This is sick.”

By Dennis Keen, an Almaty-based American blogger and writer
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Uzbek/Kazakh water politics

>>Is Kazakhstan shifting away from pro-Uzbekistan stance?>>

FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Astana has been a reliable supporter for Tashkent on some major regional issues over the past 20 years, backing Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s opposition to prospective Tajik and Kyrgyz hydropower dams and also deporting Uzbek asylum seekers.

But the Kazakh authorities may have recently started sending signals that suggest they want changes in Uzbekistan. For instance, Rapil Joshybayev, the Kazakh first deputy foreign minister told a group of Tajik officials in Dushanbe that Kazakhstan may have had a change of heart over the hydropower issue (Feb. 4).

“Kazakhstan is ready to consider the Tajik party’s proposals on fulfilling contracts as part of the hydropower stations construction projects,” he said.

This statement may signify a change of approach by Kazakhstan over a major piece of regional politics — the expansion of hydropower.

In short the upstream countries, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, want to build hydropower dams. The downstream countries, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, want to stop this.

These are tricky times for Uzbekistan. Next month, Uzbekistan will also have to deal with a presidential election.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Kazakh villagers attack Tajiks

>>Clashes breakout after Tajik is accused of murder>>

FEB. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A group of Kazakhs attacked Tajik homes in a village near Kazakhstan’s border with Uzbekistan.

The police had earlier accused Navmidin Narmetov, a Tajik, of killing Bakytzhan Artykov, a Kazakh in the village of Bostandyk, 150km south of the regional capital, Shymkent.

Friends and family members of the victim converged on the Tajiks’ homes, burning cars, attacking the Tajik-language school and shouting: “Go home!”.

A state of emergency was briefly proclaimed by the ministry of interior. In the southern region, internet connections and cell phone reception were frozen for days after the attacks. Online news reports, both in Russian and in English were censored across the country.

The alleged murderer was caught in Uzbekistan.

Inter-ethnic harmony is a particularly sensitive issue in Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has often spoken on the topic and in 2011, rioting oil workers in west Kazakhstan clashed with police. Several people died triggering the most serious crisis of Mr Nazarbayev’s presidency.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)