FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will buy several Russian-made Sukhoi SU-30SM fighter jets to rebuild its Soviet-era air force, media reported quoting the commander of the Kazakh Air Force Major General Nurlan Ormanbetov. The order highlights Kazakhstan close links with Russia and also its determination to re-build its military.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
>>Rouble devaluation makes Russian goods cheap>>
FEB. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Local authorities in Kazakhstan said they are worried about cheap goods from Russia flooding its northern markets. The rouble has halved in value, making goods from Russia cheap for Kazakhstanis.
Duisenbai Turganov, vice-governor of the Pavlodar province, directed his concerns to Kazakh deputy PM, Bakhytzhan Sagintayev.
He said Russian goods flooding the Kazakh market could be classified as a dumping practice.
“Prices of Russian competitors are 30-60% lower than Kazakh suppliers can offer. This has a negative impact on the activities of the local industrial enterprises,” the tengrinews.kz website quoted him as saying.
The row piles more pressure on to the Eurasian Economic Union which has become tainted by commercial wars among the members. Belarus and Armenia are also members.
And we’ve seen this issue before. Since December, Kazakhs are crossing the border to buy cheap goods in Russia. Although quantities may be risible for Moscow, on the other side of the fence, buying Russian goods makes a difference for Kazakhs.
From cars, to poultry, to petroleum products, the large-scale entry of cheap goods from the north into Kazakhstan creates an imbalance in the Kazakh economy and puts local factories under stress.
The governor in Pavlodar may be talking peanuts to Russia, but these are vital components of the socio-economic makeup of the northern regions of Kazakhstan.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Despite an antagonistic stand-off between Washington and the Kremlin over the civil war in Ukraine, media reported that Kazakhstan has organised a military exercise with the US. The US has held military exercises with Kazakhstan for several years. Kazakhstan is also a close ally of Russia.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s net gold and foreign currency reserves increased to $28.2b in January from $28b in December and $24b from a year earlier, highlighting its ability to fight downward pressure on its tenge currency. Kazakhs worry about another devaluation.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Italian oil service company Saipem has won a $1.8b contract to replace leaky pipes at the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, media reported. It said the new pipes would be in place by the end of 2016, allowing oil to flow from Kashagan by the start of 2017.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A handful of residents in Almaty staged another protest against the falling value of the Kazakh tenge. According to a Radio Free Europe report the protesters said they had taken out mortgages when $1 equalled 107 tenge. Now $1 equalled 186 tenge. Protests are rare in Kazakhstan but pressure on the tenge has angered people.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
>>Net emigration is the first for a decade>>
FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Almost 27,000 people emigrated from Kazakhstan in 2014. That’s 10% more than those who decided to move into Kazakhstan, creating a negative population flow for the first time in a decade, according to official data.
More worrying for the Kazakh authorities is that behind the migration flux was a clear brain drain.
In the early 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, millions of non-ethnic Kazakhs left for their familial or cultural homeland. Since then, the population in Kazakhstan has steadily increased.
But a report on migration released by the national statistics agency showed that more people left Kazakhstan in 2014 then moved in. Shynasyl Yernazar, of the Kazakhstan Centre for Public-Private Partnerships said the most worrying sign was the number of young people leaving.
“A brain drain among young professionals is happening, as demonstrated by last year’s survey, by which more than one-third of Kazakhstanis between 18 and 28 said they’d like to leave, ” he told the Tengrinews website (Jan. 29).
Better job prospects and access to more meritocratic systems are the main drivers of this trend. Most of the incoming migrants are from poorer countries.
Daniyar Kosnazarov, a researcher at the Presidential Library in Astana and a co-author of a book on youth issues, said it was important the government finds better and more effective ways of engaging with young Kazakhs.
“With the Eurasian Union, the common labour market will make competition tougher as Russians and Belarusians are better skilled,” Mr Kosnazarov told the Bulletin in a telephone interview from Astana.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
JAN. 28. 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Wrapping up a mission to Kazakhstan, the UN’s special rapporteur Maina Kiai said he was disturbed to hear from Kazakh officials that they had decided to clamp down on protests because they worried about a Ukraine style rebellion.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015
FEB. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — ArcelorMittal, the Luxembourg-based steel manufacturer, said it had temporarily cut salaries for workers at its plant in Temirtau near Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, by 25. ArcelorMittal has struggled to make the plant profitable over the last few years. It has cut its workforce at the plant to 17,000 from over 20,000.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
>>Worries about devaluation drive Kazakhs to the rouble>>
FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — People in Kazakhstan have been buying roubles at surprising rates over the past couple of months.
Exchange bureaus data shows that the demand for the Russian currency increased steadily in November and skyrocketed in December despite the rouble losing value against the Kazakh tenge (Jan. 28).
No official reason has been given for the rise in rouble demand but there are several plausible reasons. A Bulletin correspondent in Almaty said many Kazakhs see the ailing rouble as a cheap currency for cross-border shopping.
Of course, Kazakhs may also be speculating that the rouble is valued too cheaply at the moment and that it will rise in value. This is almost certainly true of its value against the Kazakh tenge.
The Kazakh Central Bank has vowed to avoid another devaluation of the tenge — it cut the value of its currency by 20% last year — but the market, and most people on the streets think that another sudden devaluation is inevitable.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
