Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

New Silk Road shapes up in Kazakhstan

MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Along Kazakhstan’s southern border hundreds of labourers are working on a project that is supposed to reignite the old Silk Road and turn the country into a central trading hub once again.

It’s an ambitious $5.5b project to build a road that crosses this vast arid land prone to freezing, heavy winters and burning, hot summers.

Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev inaugurated the project in September 2009. Nearly five years later, work is still ongoing.

At a roadside outside Shymkent, a teeming city of 650,000 people on the border with Uzbekistan, Baurzhan surveyed his road-building teams.

“Our company is a small private local enterprise and we won a small tender. Together with other local companies we are building most access roads and smaller sections of the highway,” he told a Conway Bulletin correspondent.

“Our work is going well, but severe weather has delayed our work by at least three months.”

Heavy snow storms have smashed into southern Kazakhstan this year, flooding villages and infrastructure.

The road is supposed to link Lianyungang on China’s eastern coast with St Petersburg in Russia. It’s an 8,445km stretch, with 2,787km cutting through the Kazakh steppe.

But there is some debate over whether Kazakhstan will actually benefit from this super-highway.

In Shymkent, Nurzhan, a 26-year-old British educated university graduate, said: “The road won’t benefit Kazakhstan, as we will only be the link between two bigger markets.”

A commercial truck driver disagreed. “My brother is buying fifty brand new trucks,” he said. “We hope this investment will bring returns as soon as trade starts.”

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)

Kazakhstan builds new $55m French embassy

MARCH 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government plans to buy a new embassy building in Paris for $55m, media reported. The vice-minister for foreign affairs, Rapil Zhoshybayev, defended the purchase as value for money because the housing market in Paris is rising. Kazakhstan has been upgrading its embassies around the world.

ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)

Kazakhs lament unemployment

MARCH 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hundreds of people living in a town in the western Kazakh province of Mangistau protested against soaring joblessness after reading an interview by their mayor in which he boasted of unemployment of only 0.4%, media reported. Inhabitants said unemployment was nearer 40%.

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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Kazakhstan to broadcast news in Chinese

MARCH 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state news service Kazinform said it would publish a Chinese-language website, underlining how important China has become to Kazakhstan. Over the past half a decade or so, China has increasingly become Kazakhstan’s main economic partner. It owns a third of Kazakhstan’s oil and gas reserves.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Airport in Kazakhstan faces bankruptcy

MARCH 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The impact of Kazakhstan’s 20% currency devaluation last month is beginning to filter through to business.

Kazakh senator Mikhail Bortnik said that unless JSC International Airport Aktau could restructure its dollar-denominated debt, it would go bankrupt.

JSC International Airport Aktau, which under a deal with Mangistau regional government is owned by Turkish company ATM until 2025, has re-built Aktau airport’s passenger terminal and runway over the last few years.

It is now Kazakhstan’s third busiest airport, behind Almaty and Astana, and hosts flights from Baku, Kiev, Moscow and central Europe.

But after February’s tenge devaluation the $47m debt that Mangistau regional government took on to re-build the airport from the state-run Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) has become 20% more expensive to service.

The problem for the DBK is that if it agrees to restructure the Aktau airport debt, it may have to restructure several other company debts too.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Kazakhstan predicts fuel price increase

MARCH 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A rare admission from a Kazakh insider that the country’s energy policies may not be working hints at future fuel price increases, analysts have said.

Sauat Mynbayev, chairman of state-owned KazMunaiGas, said sending Kazakh oil to China to be processed into fuel and then re-importing it to make up for a shortfall in domestic refining capacity has become too expensive.

“The transit operations regarding the refining of Kazakhstan’s oil in China has become unprofitable,” media quoted him as saying.

Analysts immediately unpicked his statement. What this meant, they said, was that fuel prices would rise shortly.

And that, as the government knows, will be deeply unpopular.

Oil-rich Kazakhstan has a chronic lack of refining capacity. The three refineries at Shymkent, Pavlodar and Atyrau are often under repair. New refineries are only scheduled to come on-stream in five or six years time.

To make up for the shortfall, Kazakhstan is importing refined fuel from China and Russia. It is also sending unrefined fuel into China for processing and then shipping it back over the border.

Added to this complex arrangement is Kazakhstan’s 20% currency devaluation in February which makes imports even more expensive.

Mr Mynbayev has just been made head of Kazakhstan’s Greco-Roman wrestling federation, a position that underlines his insider credentials.

For an insider to admit a policy problem is almost unheard of in Kazakhstan. As analysts have now warned, expect fuel price increases.

(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Kazakh factory threatens job cuts

MARCH 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — PromMashKomplekt, a plant in northern Kazakhstan that manufactures wheels for trains, has said it may have to make redundant 540 employees because of a contract row with a subsidiary of Temir Zholy, the Kazakh national railway, media reported. The row highlights the relatively precarious state of Kazakh industry.

(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Rakishev named head of Kazakhstan Engineering

MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kenes Rakishev, the high-profile son-in-law of Astana mayor Imangali Tasmagambetov, has been appointed director at Kazakhstan Engineering . Kazakhstan Engineering is owned by Kazakh sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna. It mainly works with the ministry of defence to maintain military equipment

(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Kazakhstan wants new airport

MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has approved plans to build a new airport outside Almaty to serve as an international hub, media reported. The current airport at Almaty is too small to handle Kazakhstan’s ambitions of becoming a transit point for people flying between Europe and Asia.

(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)

Kazakhstan tightens loan requirements

MARCH 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to reduce bad loans, Kazakhstan’s Central Bank imposed tighter regulations on its banks’ lending. In a statement, the Central Bank said banks would be banned from lending to people whose repayments would equal half their monthly income. Nearly a third of all 90-day loans in Kazakhstan are overdue.

(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)