APRIL 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Kazakhstan ordered the closure of the independent Assandi Times newspaper for retaining links to the banned opposition newspaper Respublika. New York-based Human Rights Group said: “This absurd case displays the lengths to which Kazakh authorities are willing to go to bully critical media into silence.”
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(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)
APRIL 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A passenger train running between Almaty and Atyrau, western Kazakhstan, derailed injuring 44 people. Kazakhstan is pouring cash into updating and modernising its rail infrastructure. Rail remains one of the main ways to travel around the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)
APRIL 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — An Italian court granted refugee status to the wife and daughter of Mukhtar Ablyazov, a Kazakh former banker-turned-opposition leader currently in French custody awaiting the result of an extradition request from Kazakhstan. The ruling is a blow to Kazakhstan which had been looking to force their return.
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(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)
APRIL 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — China’s state-owned Sinopec bought the Kazakhstan business unit of Russia’s Lukoil for $1.2b. The deal to buy 50% of Caspian Investment Resources ltd (CIR) underlines the shift in Kazakhstan’s energy sector away from Russia towards China. Sinopec already owned the other 50% of CIR.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Perhaps with the turmoil in Ukraine in mind, Kazakh security forces held nationwide drills to test their readiness to quash protests. Kazakh officials are particularly nervous that Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last month may encourage other regions with large Russian minorities to try to secede.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Eager to boost oil production, Kazakhstan has said that it wants to increase output from its current projects to make up for the shortfall created by the longer-than- expected shutdown at Kashagan. Kashagan had been expected to turn Kazakhstan into a major energy superpower but instead is currently under repair.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh courts badly need to root out corruption, Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State Adilbek Dzhaksybekov said. His comments are a rare admission from a Kazakh government official that more needs to be done to reform corruption institutions.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh businesses and consumers need to learn to re-pay loans, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev said in a rare foray into personal finance. Mr Nazarbayev’s frustration is understandable. Kazakhstan has one of the highest proportions of bad loans in the world, hindering its economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — It was overcrowded and barely organised but a meeting in Almaty that opposed Kazakhstan’s move towards a Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union was important.
Around 250 people, with an uneasy mix of different agendas from ultra-nationalists to human rights protesters, attended the meeting in a scruffy hotel.
The main complaints were a lack of transparency in the move and that Kazakhstan may lose its identity.
Speaking at the meeting, political commentator Dastan Kadyrzhanov said: “The Eurasian Economic Union is our Rubicon, a civilisational choice. If we pass it, there will be no way back.”
Opposition groups in Kazakhstan have a tough time. They have been hounded, detained, pushed off the streets. So for this meeting to pass off without protesters being detained was eye-catching.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The fallout from Ukraine’s revolution and the ensuing standoff between Russia and the West has created a headache for Kazakhstan.
If relations fray further the US and the EU may impose trade sanctions on Russia and these will impact Kazakhstan.
But the Kazakh energy sector is probably more robust than energy minister Uzakbai Karabalin made out last week.
Kazakhstan relies heavily on Russia as a transit country for its oil and it may have to find alternative export routes, but those routes do exist. This might include sending oil south, through Iran to the Persian Gulf.
Around a third of Kazakhstan’s oil exports flow through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) which owns the pipeline running from Atyrau in western Kazakhstan to Novorossiysk on Russia’s black Sea coast.
At first glance it looks as if any sanctions on Russia would hit CPC — the pipeline crosses Russia and feeds into a Russian mix of oil. But the CPC has international status and should, in theory, be exempt from sanctions.
Kazakhstan now also exports much of its oil to China, across the Caspian Sea and through the South Caucasus. Mr Karabalin’s concerns about the impact on Kazakhstan’s domestic oil-products market from a sanctions hit Russia also feels slightly overblown.
Kazakhstan has a shortage of refinery capacity and has to import oil products from China and Russia. This has been expensive and has threatened to push up prices.
If the West did impose sanctions on Russia and it did flood Kazakhstan with oil products, prices would drop.
Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia are exposed to Russia’s economy. If, under the weight of threatened sanctions, it stutters, so too does Central Asia. Kazakhstan’s energy sector, though, is more sheltered.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
