Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

HSBC quits Kazakhstan

FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — British bank HSBC agreed to sell its banking assets in Kazakhstan to Halyk Bank for $176m.

HSBC Kazakhstan employed about 600 people and operated six branches in the country.

The deal is important for two reasons. Although left unsaid, HSBC’s move out of Kazakhstan feels like a fairly damming verdict on the Kazakh economy. After all, HSBC spent 15 year working in Kazakhstan.

Perhaps Kazakhstan is not as rosy economically as government ministers would like the public to think.

Secondly, Halyk Bank, the purchaser of HSBC’s banking assets, is owned by the Dinara Nazarbayeva and Timur Kulibayev, the daughter and son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

HSBC has generally had a re-think across the globe on its banking strategy. It pulled out of Russia in 2011 after only two years.

For Halyk Bank, the deal is something of a coup. Halyk Bank refused to buy the government’s stake in debt-ridden BTA Bank at the end of 2013, showing its independent thinking.

For Kazakhstan’s banking sector, the deal marks another round in the consolidation process. It also leaves Citi as the only Western bank with a major presence. All eyes are now on Citi and how long it lasts.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)

Opposition timidly protests in Kazakhstan

MARCH 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Anti-government rallies in Kazakhstan are rare, making a planned demonstration in central Almaty an ideal opportunity to gauge the public’s appetite for protest.

If you blinked, you would have missed it. It felt like that, anyway.

Around two dozen protesters, out-numbered by plainclothed police, gathered under a statue of Abai, Kazakhstan’s national poet, in a square in central Almaty.

Passers-by hurried on with barely a glance at the gathering. The normally ever-present uniformed police hadn’t bothered to monitor the protest.

There was, frankly, a lack of momentum.

One of the protesters shuffled his feet and said that people were afraid to turning up because of the fear of being arrested.

Certainly the authorities in Kazakhstan don’t tolerate dissent, they arrested several bloggers last month after they protested, but, even so, this was a poor turnout.

Yerlan Kaliyev, an opposition activist acting as a figurehead, tried to inject substance into the rally by referencing Abai, the poet.

He said: “His call to be wary of rich people is more than one hundred years old but could be directly applied to the current situation in our country.”

The protesters agreed with Mr Kaliyev.

They mixed political slogans with poetry recitals for about an hour. Then they all went home.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)

Kazakhstan wants to open domestic airline

FEB. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government said it would buy 10 planes from Canada’s Bombardier to set up a domestic airline called Air Kazakhstan. Air Kazakhstan was the name of the Kazakh national airline in the 1990s. It was phased out with the creation of Air Astana in 2001. Kazakhstan has been investing heavily in transport infrastructure.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)

Fuel shortages may occur in Kazakhstan

FEB. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan may experience fuel shortages this year, media quoted Sauat Mynbayev, head of Kazmunaigas, as saying. Kazakhstan’s three oil refineries are being upgrading, reducing their capacity and forcing the authorities to import fuel from Russia. The currency devaluation has made fuel imports expensive.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)

Kazakhstan sponsors Almaty 2022 Olympic bid

FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s delegation at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in Russia took the chance to plug Almaty for the 2022 event. The Kazakh delegation pledged that they would not spend hugely on new facilities as Sochi had. Almaty is competing against Lviv in Ukraine, Oslo, Beijing and Krakow in Poland.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)

Experts question Kazakh Central Bank’s ability to control

FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — If the Kazakh Central Bank’s decision to devalue the Kazakh tenge by 20% on Feb. 11 came as a nasty surprise, the admission by Kairat Kelimbetov, the Bank’s chief, that he had only learned of the policy shift the night before came as a frightening shock.

Readers left floods of angry comments on news websites on the apparent ineptitude of Mr Kelimbetov.

“If he didn’t know, it means he doesn’t work at all! What an irresponsible (man),” wrote one user.

The Kazakh Central Bank is supposedly in charge of the country’s monetary policy and the constitution enshrines its independence.

And yet here was the Mr Kelimbetov saying that he’d only been informed about a policy change at the last moment. Many suspect that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in power since 1991, influences monetary policy.

Even so, it was a PR disaster for Mr Kelimbetov, said Eldar Madumarov, an economics professor in Almaty.

“It used to be regarded as the most independent and reliable Central Bank among all post-Soviet countries, including Russia,” he said. “All he’s been saying undermines his credibility.”

The Kazakh President, with approval from the Senate, appoints the Central Bank chief. Mr Kelimbetov took over as head of the Kazakh Central Bank in October last year from Grigory Marchenko, who was considered a steady hand.

Mr Kelimbetov’s reputation appears to be in tatters as Svetlana Dzhalmagambetova, a senator, voiced when she faced him at a Senate hearing on the devaluation.

“We need to know if you lack professionalism or ethics, it’s one of the two,” she said according to reports. “You misled not only the people of Kazakhstan, but also their representatives here in the Parliament.”

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)

Kazakhs rally for Ukraine

FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The revolution that swept Viktor Yanukovich from power in Ukraine has reverberated, gently, around the former Soviet Union.

In Almaty, the financial capital of Kazakhstan, roughly two dozen people gathered outside the Ukrainian consulate last week after news emerged that snipers had shot dozens of people in Kiev. They lit candles and sang the Ukrainian national anthem. Social media filled with statements of solidarity and posts that shared the latest news, both in Russian and in Kazakh.

Although analysts have said that the revolution in Ukraine may trigger anti-government demonstrations in other parts of the former Soviet Union, apart from the vigil outside the Ukrainian consulate in Almaty, the reaction on the streets was muted.

This was partly, said political observer Adil Nurmakov of blogbasta.kz, because most legal forms of protest in Kazakhstan had been extinguished.

(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)

Rumours erode bank assets in Kazakhstan

FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kaspi Bank’s chairman, Mikhail Lomtadze, said customers withdrew 40b tenge ($216m) from their accounts after SMS messages wrongly claimed the Kazakh bank was going to collapse after the devaluation of the Tenge earlier this month. Mr Lomtadze said this equalled roughly a tenth of all the savings in Kaspi Bank.

(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)

Kazakh FM complains over Russian comment

FEB. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry has complained to Russia about comments made by politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky who said Central Asia should become a federal Russian region, media reported. Mr Zhirinovsky is known for his outspoken comments and, although relatively high profile, is considered a fringe politician.

(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)

Kazakhstan bans sale of Uzbek-made cars

FEB. 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan has banned the sale of Uzbekistan-made GM Daewoo cars, media reported, triggering a potential trade row between the two neighbours.

Officially, Kazakhstan said Customs Union rules stated that imported cars must have at least one front airbag, ABS braking, child safety seat attachment points, daytime running lights and an immobiliser.

Unofficially, the suspicion is that Kazakhstan may be using the Customs Union to protect its own car industry.

The Customs Union has been in existence since 2011. It is led by Russia and so far includes also Kazakhstan and Belarus, although Armenia and Kyrgyzstan plan to join later this year. Uzbekistan has no plans to join.

Its rules and regulations, though, are some-what murky but what we do know is that, by instinct, it is a protectionist organisation.

What is clear is that last year GM-Uzbekistan, which produces its cars at a factory in Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan sold around 23,000 of its cheaper car models in Kazakhstan and around three times that many to Russia.

GM took over the Daewoo factory in Uzbekistan in 2008.

Visitors to Shymkent, a city of 600,000 people in Kazakhstan on the border with Uzbekistan, will notice that many of the cars on the roads being driven there are Daewoo.

Both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have been talking up their car industries. Uzbekistan’s main car markets are Russia and Kazakhstan and the GM Daewoo factory is its biggest producer.

Losing Kazakhstan, and Russia, as an export market will be a major blow and have, potentially, far reaching implications.

(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)