OCT. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Underlining Kazakhstan’s links with NATO countries, Kazakh defence minister Adilbek Dzhaksybekov flew to London for talks with his British counterpart Philip Hammond. Kazakhstan wants British advice on how to professionalise its military. Earlier this year the Kazakh government announced that it would end conscription.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will harvest up to 19m tonnes of grain this year, a 50% rise from 2012, media quoted deputy agriculture minister Muslim Umiryaev as saying. Over the past decade Kazakhstan has turned itself into a major grain exporter. It has become an important part of the economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The suicide rate in Kazakhstan is growing, it is almost double the global average according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), worrying parliamentarians.
The starkest statistic is in youth suicides which have been creeping up. Suicides by people under the age of 22 make up roughly a third of all suicides in Kazakhstan, according to Kazakh government statistics.
In WHO’s, rather morbid, global league table, Kazakhstan sits in the top five for most suicides per 100,000 people with roughly 25 every year. Russia, by comparison, has 20 suicides per 100,000 people every year.
Media outlets and government officials blame new technologies and the abandonment of traditional Kazakh family values, the growing pains of an expanding economy, for the high suicide rate.
Parliamentarians, though, have another theory.
They have blamed the foreign punk culture and the melancholic, Goth-like emo sub-culture for the rise in suicides and called for symbols such as guns and skull and cross bones to be banned in schools.
At a university canteen in Almaty, though, this theory was rubbished by a group of students.
“I know a couple of them that just wanted to show around the marks on their wrists,” Azamat, one of the students, said of teenagers following the emo fashion. “They don’t want to kill themselves.”
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nine Kazakh weightlifters have tested positive for doping, media quoted the International Weightlifting Federations (IWF) as saying. The findings are an embarrassment to Kazakhstan which wants to promote its prowess in the sport. At the 2012 Olympics, Kazakhstan won four gold medals in weightlifting.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
OCT. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a conference in London, Kazakh officials were eager to talk about plans to turn Kazakhstan into a centre for Islamic finance.
Islamic finance is the term used to define investments made, basically, with Islamic principles in mind. It’s a fluid concept but one that has picked up advocates in the Muslim world over the past few years. Kazakhstan though, has been a bit slow off the mark.
Although nominally a secular country, most people in Kazakhstan are Muslim and it has a fairly developed banking sector in Almaty.
Last year, the Kazakhstan Development Bank issued a $75.5m Islamic bond in Malaysia, which has become something of a centre for Islamic finance.
That, though, appears to have been just the start.
Now Asset Issekeshev, the Kazakh minister for new technology, has said Kazakhstan wants to join the International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM), a global watchdog for Islamic finance.
Yerlan Baidaulet, a Kazakh board member at Jeddah-based bank Islamic Development Bank (IDB), went further though. He said now that Kazakhstan had a new head of its Central Bank, Islamic finance would really take off.
Mr Baidaulet told Reuters at the conference that IDB was introducing an Islamic bank and a leasing company in Kazakhstan next year.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The volume of cashless transactions in Kazakhstan increased by 25% in the year to the end of September, the Kazakh Central Bank said. This shows that Kazakh consumers are becoming more sophisticated and comfortable with using debit and credit cards. Cashless transactions account for roughly 15% of all purchases.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
OCT. 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s been another turbulent week for the consortium of partners developing the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea.
This is the field that finally produced its first oil in September after a 13-year, $50b construction phase. It is Kazakhstan’s most high profile industrial project and also carries the nation’s hopes of securing a place as one of the world’s top oil exporters.
The pressure is on, then.
It hasn’t been a smooth route towards commercial oil production at Kashagan, though.
First a gas leak temporarily halted oil production in September. This was fixed but another gas leak halted production a few days later. After initially brushing off this gas leak and saying that it wouldn’t derail the production timetable, officials at the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), that’s the name of the company running the site, have changed their mind.
Kashagan will now close for a few weeks until the leak is repaired, media quoted an NCOC statement as saying, meaning that a commercial production target of 75,000 barrels of oil a day will not be hit this month.
A few days later media also reported that AgipKCO’s managing director, Umberto Carrara, had decided to retire after seven years in the job. AgipKCO was the company formed to build Kashagan. NCOC said Mr Carrara’s departure was unconnected to the delays at Kashagan.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will complete the merger of its private pension schemes into a single national programme by the middle of next year, media quoted the Central Bank chief, Kairat Kelimbetov, as saying. The original plan had been to merge 11 pension funds in Kazakhstan into a single $21b programme by the end of 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s government has approved a deal to merge its air defence systems with Kazakhstan, media reported. A deal to merge air defence capabilities was originally signed in January. Combining air defence systems will edge Kazakhstan further towards Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The consortium developing the giant Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea halted production to fix a gas leak. The shutdown will delay by a few weeks the commercial start of oil production that had been scheduled for this month.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
