Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Tele2 posts upbeat Kazakh assessment

ALMATY, APRIL 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swedish mobile operator Tele2 said that its joint venture in Kazakhstan with Altel in February last year was working out with revenues rising 14% in Q1 2017 versus Q1 2016 on a like-for-like basis.

Tele2 said that a 3% rise in its customer base and an increase in the average spend per user, a key indicator that the Kazakh economy is improving, had driven up revenues. Tele2 owns a 49% stake in its joint venture with Altel, which has around 6.5m subscribers – a 22% market share.

“Although still competitive, the market continued to benefit from higher pricing levels. The JV continued to replace old products with new offerings that offer better support for ASPU growth over time,” Tele2 said in its statement.

Altel is owned by state-run Kazakhtelecom. The joint-venture with Tele2 is seen as a challenger brand to the more established Kcell, part-owned by Sweden’s Telia, and Beeline, the brand name operated by Russia’s Vimpelcom.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Hackers target Kazakh defence ministry

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APRIL 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hackers defaced the front page of Kazakhstan’s ministry of defence website, less than three months after the government ordered a $74m programme to boost cyber security. Cyber security experts have said that the Kazakh internet security infrastructure is weak. The profit.kz website reported that hackers promoting a free Palestine defaced the mod.gov.kz website for an hour.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Kazakhstan places limit on airline ownership

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APRIL 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ahead of a planned IPO of Air Astana, Kazakhstan’s parliament has passed a motion that bans foreigners from owning more than 49% of its national airlines. Britain’s BAE Systems currently owns 49% of Air Astana which is slated to be one of the first of a series of high-profile Kazakh state- owned companies to be privatised.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Kazakh military orders two more transport planes

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APRIL 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s military ordered two more Airbus C295 transport planes, bringing the total it now owns to eight. Kazakhstan is in the midst of push to modernise and upgrade its military. The C295 has become the workhorse of choice for many militaries. It can carry 70 soldiers or 50 paratroopers.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Kcell posts upbeat economic assessment

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APRIL 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an upbeat assessment of the Kazakh economy, Kcell CEO Arti Ots said that Q1 2017 had been a period of stabilisation for the mobile operator. Service revenue, an important indicator of a mobile operator’s health, still fell but only by 1.5% while overall revenue was flat. Operating margins, though fell to 37% in Q1 2017 compared to 42% in Q1 2016, showing just how competitive the sector is. A price war has dented margins in Kazakhstan’s mobile market. Telia is a major shareholder in Kcell although it has said it wants to sell out of Central Asia.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Cut military spending, says Kazakhstan

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APRIL 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Perhaps looking to burnish its self- generated reputation as a peace centre for world conflicts, Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry released a statement calling for a reduction in spending on militaries around the world. Instead of spending their budget on arms, Kazakhstan said that governments should be tackling hunger and poverty. Kazakhstan is hosting peace talks aimed at ending a civil war in Syria. It also currently holds a rotating chair on the UN Security Council.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Yandex opens office in Kazakhstan

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APRIL 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Yandex, the Russian language search internet search engine, opened its first office in Kazakhstan, another sign of renewed confidence in the region’s economy. The office in Almaty is an effort by the Russian language search engine to boost advertising revenues from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is the eighth office that Yandex has set up outside Russia. It said there are 5m hits on its search engine each day from Kazakhstan. Yandex has its own dedicated yandex.kz URL.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Convicted terrorists in Kazakhstan to lose citizenship

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APRIL 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh MPs passed into law a bill that will strip people convicted of terrorism of their citizenship. Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia have been fighting to dampen a flow of recruits to the extremist IS group over the past few years. The main suspects behind an attack in Istanbul and St Petersburg this year were from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Kazakh language clubs thrive as people explore national heritage

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ALMATY, APRIL 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In Kazakhstan’s cities, where Russian was once the dominant language, Kazakh language clubs are increasingly popular.

Alina Achilova, a student at the International Information Technologies University in Almaty, helped set up the Qazaqsha club three years ago. Based in a museum for national instruments, the club has broad appeal, attracting students, professionals and the retired. What they share, Ms Achilova said, was Russian as their first language and a desire to explore their own cultural heritage.

“I had many friends of different ethnicities and native Kazakhs who couldn’t speak or understand Kazakh language and would always ask me for help,” she said. “In Almaty I couldn’t find any places for them to learn Kazakh and thought it’d be good to open such a place.”

Language has once again been thrust into the political spotlight in Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbayev said this month that he wants to switch Kazakh to the Latin alphabet from Cyrillic to broaden its appeal and to identify it more closely with other Turkic languages.

Since independence from the Soviet Union he has worked on building the cultural identity of Kazakhstan, promoting national heroes, cultural and language. Kazakh has grown in popularity and in Almaty it is far more widely spoken now than it was even a decade ago.

Some analysts have accused Mr Nazarbayev of trying to airbrush Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet out of Kazakhstan, but it is still an official language, still widely spoken in business and politics and is the main language in the north of the country.

Still, even among Kazakh’s supporter base, there are people who question whether the switch to Latin is such a good idea.

“I think it will be very long, expensive and problematic process,” said Yerke Maratkyzy, at Qazaqsha club.

Turkish is written in Latin, as is Uzbek, although in Kyrgyzstan, the Cyrillic imposed by the Soviets in the 1920s is still used, like in Kazakhstan. Before that, both Kazakh and Kyrgyz had been written in Arabic script.

For Erden Zikibay, a volunteer at another Kazakh language club called Bas Quso, the switch to Latin is a positive step.

“It will help bring together Kazakh people and Kazakhstani people to the Turkic and Western worlds, and increase popularity and prestige of Kazakh language inside Kazakhstan.”

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

India wants to boost cotton imports from Kazakhstan

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APRIL 20/21 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a meeting in the south Kazakh city of Shymkent, Kazakh and Indian officials pledged to increase cooperation in the cotton trade. Indian businessmen said that they wanted to increase the supply of cotton from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has been trying to develop its cotton sector over the past few years in a drive to move away from rely too heavily on the oil and gas sector.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)