JUNE 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Air Astana will aim for an IPO within three years, Peter Foster, its CEO, said, according to media. Samruk-Kazyna, the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund owns 51% of Air Astana and BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace) owns 49%. The Kazakh government has been looking to privatise various companies it owns.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JUNE 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Union of Journalists has awarded Julian Assange, head of Wikileaks, a prize for investigative journalism, media reported. Mr Assange has been living in Ecuador’s embassy in London since June 2012. He is wanted in the US for divulging classified information and in Sweden to face charges of sex offences.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Doctors and nurses will receive a 28% salary rise next year, media quoted health minister Salidat Kairbekova as saying. Medical workers have long complained that they are underpaid, especially since a 20% devaluation of the tenge this year. Nurses in Kazakhstan are currently paid $436/month; doctors $620/month.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – So, now it is official. The unrest in Ukraine is negatively impacting Kazakhstan’s economy, economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev said at a routine press conference.
Economists have been downgrading Kazakhstan’s growth predictions this year because of increased fighting in Ukraine and international sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea but this is the first official confirmation.
“The poor growth rate of industrial production, the slowdown of investment activities, high levels of non- performing loans, and the crisis in Ukraine are the main risks to Kazakhstan’s economy,” Mr Dossayev said.
Kazakhstan is now looking at GDP growth this year of around 4% rather than the 6% it first hoped to hit.
Rasul Zhumaly, a political analyst for the exclusive.kz website explained the impact of the Ukraine unrest on Kazakhstan.
“(There is a) high level of interdependence among these post-Soviet economies,” he said. “The Ukrainian situation is negatively affecting the Russian economy and this in turn is closing some avenues for the development of Kazakhstan.”
There is, though, a sneaking suspicion that the Kazakh officials may be starting to use Ukraine as an excuse, shielding genuine structural problems in the economy from attention.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan banned the sale of alcohol between 9pm and 12am every day except in licensed bars and restaurants in an attempt to get people to drink less Alcohol sales are ubiquitous in shops around the country, something officials blame for the high level of drinking.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will trial a pilot project to change its national education curriculum away from the Soviet style rote learning to one based on the West’s critical thinking and problem solving, media reported. The step is, potentially, a major step in a much needed educational overhaul.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz agriculture accounts for around a fifth of GDP and just under half the country’s employment according to the country’s National Statistics Committee, yet many farmers say the sector is on its knees.
As Kyrgyzstan prepares for entry into the Eurasian Economic Union comprising Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, discussions over farming’s future are only likely to intensify.
On June 12, Alibek Rakaev, Head of the Association of Pastoralists told journalists that meat production in the country was falling due to the prevalence of diseases that village vets have proven unable to diagnose or treat. Livestock farming was in a “critical condition”, he said.
Back in Soviet times Kyrgyzstan’s meat and dairy products were exported all over the Union, but neighbouring Kazakhstan now views Kyrgyzstan’s products with caution and has banned import of Kyrgyz milk and meat in the past. The Eurasian Economic Union has even tighter controls.
Poultry farmers might welcome membership, with high tariffs on non-Union imports potentially restricting the flow of Chinese chicken and eggs onto the domestic market, but for Kyrgyzstan’s crop-growers, Jomart Jumabekov, a member of the Public Advisory Board on the Ministry of Agriculture, said, closer integration with Russia and Kyrgyzstan means problems.
“I view the Customs Union negatively. Russian and Kazakh wheat and grains already dominate our market,” Mr Jumabekov told the Conway Bulletin. “With even fewer barriers to trade with these countries, we will stop growing even a small proportion of our own food. No-one will till the land.”
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Workers at an oil services company that supplies equipment to the Kashagan oil project in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea have gone on strike, media reported.
Since a strike by oil workers in west Kazakhstan ended in 2011 in clashes with police and 15 people being killed, the authorities have been ultra-sensitive to industrial action, so news that workers have walked out of Tuplar Energy Serves Company (TESCO) complaining of late salary payments will frustrate them.
TESCO have responded that their main client, the Australian company WorleyParsons hasn’t paid their invoices on time. WorleyParsons hasn’t commented.
The importance of this latest strike action in west Kazakhstan is not who is ultimately responsibly, no doubt lawyers will thrash this out, but the impact on the local community. If people aren’t working and aren’t being paid that means less cash in the local economy, increasing frustration and resentment of the increasingly rich political elite.
One disgruntled worker told the lada.kz news website: “I came here to work and establish a family, now I can’t find another job, the company hasn’t paid me for six months and the banks are pressuring me about my mortgage.”
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The price of a loaf of bread has increased in Pavlodar, north Kazakhstan, to 60 tenge from 47 tenge, media reported. The price rise is just the latest in Kazakhstan. Creeping inflation, triggered by supply line problems and utility price rises, threaten to cause social tension.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Doctors and nurses will receive a 28% salary rise next year, media quoted health minister Salidat Kairbekova as saying. Medical workers have long complained that they are underpaid, especially since a 20% devaluation of the tenge this year. Nurses in Kazakhstan are currently paid $436/month; doctors $620/month.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
