APRIL 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Corruption at universities in Kazakhstan is now so endemic that it has become an industry worth $100m a year, media reported quoting the ministry of education. Buying a decent grade in an exam costs about $300. Corruption is still rampant in Kazakhstan despite the government’s attempts to stamp it out.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Temirtau steel plant in central Kazakhstan, owned by Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, said that it would make 1,000 workers redundant in order to cut costs.
Outside the energy sector, the Temirtau steel plant is one of Kazakhstan’s biggest industrial operations.
It’s been trying to navigate through a difficult period, though. The combination of sanctions on Iran, previously the factory’s biggest client, and the general global economic weakness combined to knock profits and it has steadily laid off workers over the past couple of years.
At the end of last year, reports surfaced that it would look to cut around 2,500 people from its workforce of about 14,500. This now appears to have been watered down.
There hasn’t been an official statement from the company but state-backed TV channel Astana quoted Dmitry Pavlov, head of human resources at the plant, saying that the work force would be cut by only 1,000 people.
Temirtau is a classic Soviet style monogorod. The plant is the heart and soul of the city and, although the job losses appear to be limited, they will still have a large trickle-down impact.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
APRIL 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Under pressure from persistent delays and setbacks, the North Caspian Operating Company building the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea sacked Pierre Offan, its chairman and managing director. Officials have said Kashagan may be closed for another two years while leaky pipes are replaced.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The revolution and turmoil in Ukraine has frightened the Kazakh government and triggered a draconian law gagging the media, journalists and analysts told the Conway Bulletin.
Earlier this month, the Kazakh government introduced a law that will allow it to ban media during a state of emergency.
Yevgeniya Plakhina, an independent journalist and blogger who has staged anti-government protests, was succinct in her view of the new law.
“The continuous state of revolution in Ukraine has scared the government,” she said. “These laws give the leadership a red button, a button that can be arbitrarily pushed.””
Mainstream media in Kazakhstan has become increasingly marginalised, leaving a void for social media to fill. The authorities argue that social media, as well as more traditional forms of press, can be manipulated by extremists and needs to be controlled during an emergency.
Peer Teschendorf, regional director of the Friederich Ebert Foundation, a German organisation promoting civil society and media freedom, said that these laws were the culmination of a process that began after fighting in the oil town of Zhanaozen in Western Kazakhstan in 2011.
“The free press that is left now has to tread very carefully,” he said.
For Zhanbolat Mamay, journalist for the independent newspaper Tribuna, the law reflects future political landmarks that the authorities are worried about
“The signing of the Eurasian Economic Union treaty is in May and no-one is allowed to criticise it,” he said referring to the morphing of the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan into a stronger union.
“Another reason behind the new laws lays in preparing for the future. The transition to a new leader will have to happen in an information void, in order to prevent criticism and revolt.”
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Property prices in Almaty have risen by 25% over the past year as the economy rebounds and the city attracts migrants looking for work, media reported. Kazakhstan’s economy is still relatively fragile and the large property price increase has triggered concerns of a bubble.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
ALMATY/Kazakhstan, APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In Kazakhstan’s former capital, the weekend is for parties but, it appears, not everybody is invited.
Down a side street, just off one of the main streets running through Almaty, a group of five or six young men wearing leather jackets smoked cigarettes and shouted insults at the men queuing to enter a gay bar on the opposite side of the road.
The insults grew louder and stronger. Nobody stepped in to stop the abuse.
Being homosexual in Kazakhstan is far from easy. The Soviet legacy of the punishment of buggery and the revival of the strong traditional values of the country’s macho nomadic heritage both play against homosexuality.
This, though, according to a gay rights activist in Almaty goes against the tradition of the city itself.
“Almaty has a history of more than 100 years of mild tolerance towards homosexuality,” the activist who preferred to stay anonymous said in hushed tones below chatter floating across a central Almaty coffee shop.
“During the Tsarist times, Panfilov Park (then Pushkin Park) was used as a pick-up place by Russian men. This was the most gay-friendly city in the whole of Central Asia.”
But now momentum across the former Soviet Union, led by Moscow, has triggered a raft of legislation against homosexuality. Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament has been holding an ongoing debate on just how to repress homosexuality in society.
A university professor in Almaty described the impact. “There are several professionals who conceal their sexual orientation in the workplace,” he said. Almaty’s former reputation as a tolerant city appears broken.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev attended a summit for the heads of state of the Customs Union (CU) in Minsk. The summit acted as a show of support for Russia which is facing sanctions on officials after the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea last month. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are CU members.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan is going to introduce a minimum capital banking requirement that will probably whittle down the number of banks in the country.
The head of the Kazakh Central Bank, Kairat Kelimbetov, said that to meet requirements laid out in Basel-III, a set of banking benchmarks drawn up after the global financial crisis of 2008/9, banks in Kazakhstan would have to increase their capital to 100b tenge ($550m) by 2019. T
his new requirement, analysts have since said, will cut the number of banks in Kazakhstan to roughly 15 to 20, from the current 38.
For Kazakhstan’s Central Bank this is undoubtedly a positive. It takes the view that the Kazakh banking sector needs to be reformed. There are currently too many banks and too many banks with large bad loan portfolios.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will boost exports of grain to Iran and China as it looks to reduce its reliance on Ukrainian and Russian ports, Reuters reported quoting the Kazakh grain trading company. The switch is a possible reaction to the turmoil in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — New car sales in Kazakhstan increased to nearly 35,000 in the first three months of 2014, a 25% increase on the same period in 2013, an industry lobby group reported. Nearly 80% of the new car sales were imports, suggesting that a 20% devaluation of the tenge in February hasn’t dented Kazakh consumer confidence.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
