Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan drops in Transparency International index

DEC. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan has dropped seven places in this year’s Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index to 140th position.

This is not good. There are only 177 countries in the index, meaning that Kazakhstan is firmly anchored in the bottom 20% of the most corrupt countries in the world.

And it’s hardly keeping stellar company. Honduras, Laos and Uganda share the 140th position berth and from the former Soviet Union only Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are ranked lower.

“The picture is rather gloomy and can be described as stagnation across all the countries,” Svetlana Savitskaya, TI’s program coordinator for Central Asia told Radio Free Europe of the former Soviet countries’ rankings.

Of people interviewed for the index, over 40% said that corruption was a serious problem in Kazakhstan and 34% said it was getting worse.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)

Virgin Media could expand to Kazakhstan

NOV. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Bank’s IFC is considering giving Britain’s Virgin Media a loan to help it expand into a group of emerging markets including Kazakhstan, media reported. Virgin Media signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhtelecom earlier this year.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)

Kazakh border guards fire on Russian fisherman

NOV. 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia complained to Kazakhstan after Kazakh border guards shot and killed one Russian fisherman in the Caspian Sea on Nov. 25, media reported. In the same incident, the Kazakh border guards also arrested seven other fisherman, all from the North Caucasus region of Dagestan, for fishing illegally.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)

Fire destroys market in Kazakhstan

NOV. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A fire destroyed a large part of the Barakholka market, a scruffy site on the outskirts of Almaty where many poorer Kazakhs and migrants from China work. This is the third fire at Barakholka in the past couple of months. The Kazakh emergencies ministry has said it suspects arson.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)

Kazakh oligarch asks for more transparency

NOV. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — With a $2.2b fortune and the ear of the president, Bulat Utemuratov is one of the most powerful people in Kazakhstan.

Bloomberg News interviewed Mr Utemuratov at the new Rixos Borovoye hotel in northern Kazakhstan.

Mr Utemuratov is probably best known for selling his bank, ATF Bank, to Austria’s UniCredit Bank in 2007 for $2b.

And this deal, according to an excerpt from his interview with Bloomberg News, acted as a turning point in Mr Utemuratov’s business thinking.

“I decided after selling ATF Bank to UniCredit that we must stop using offshore companies and become more transparent,” he said in the Bloomberg interview.

“Everything must be clean.”

Mr Utemuratov had owned ATF Bank through a series of offshore accounts. The global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 exposed dubious accounting practices. Since then, Mr Utemuratov said he had bought or set up another couple of banks, both of which he owns transparently.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)

Kazakhstan Development Bank chief quits

NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nurlan Kussainov, the CEO of the state-owned Kazakhstan Development Bank, resigned, local media reported. Media reports didn’t specify why Mr Kussainov quit the post he had held since April 2011. Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna controls the Kazakhstan Development Bank.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)

Kazakhstan approves luxury tax

NOV. 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s upper house of parliament passed a so-called luxury tax that will increase excise duty on cigarettes and alcohol. The increase in excise duty is designed to bring prices of hard alcohol and cigarettes in Kazakhstan in line with Russia and Belarus, its Customs Unions partners.

(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)

Kazakhstan buys nuclear assets

NOV. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Igor Shkolnik, son of the head of Kazakhstan’s nuclear agency Kazatomprom, has bought a 14.9% stake in Russia’s Exillon Energy for about $115m, media reported. In 2011 Mr Shkolnik bought a stake in the Orsk refinery, Russia, from Rosneft. Analysts say he holds these investments for powerful members of the Kazakh elite.

(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)

ENRC completes LSE de-listing

NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan-based metals and mining company ENRC completed its de-listing from the London stock exchange. The British financial authorities had started investigating ENRC earlier this year after concerns about its corporate governance. This triggered a move by the three Kazakh founders of ENRC to de-list it.

(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)

Corruption delays drinking water project in Kazakhstan

NOV. 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Corruption has derailed a 195b tenge ($1.3b) government programme to bring drinking water to villages across Kazakhstan, media quoted Askhat Bekanov, a member of parliament, as saying. Mr Bekanov said in the Aktau region, for example, only six of the 300 villages that needed water system upgrades had received them.

(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)