DEC. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — New legislation in Kazakhstan will mean that from January 2017 all foreign TV stations planning on broadcasting programmes from the country will have to have a registered office, media quoted Kazakhstan’s information minister, Dauren Abayev, as saying. The move is seen as yet another way for Kazakhstan to increase its control of the media.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
ALMATY, NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Almaty jailed four men for between eight and 10 years for the rape of woman in a case that was only investigated after the mother of the victim posted a teary, anguished video on the internet asking for help.
Few rape cases are prosecuted in Kazakhstan because the victims are afraid to speak out against their attackers and are also worried about the stigma of being raped.
In this case, the victim was attacked and raped near a police station in the town of Yesik, which has a population of about 40,000 people and is roughly 40km east of Almaty. She said that initially the police were not interested in her complaint, possibly because one of the attackers was the son of a local politician, and allowed the attackers to walk away free. It was only when her mother broadcast her video, touching a nerve with the public, that the authorities showed any interest.
After the verdict a lawyer for the rape victim, who can’t be named for legal reasons, said that the conviction of the four men for rape was an important milestone for Kazakhstan.
“The verdict is of course fair. It means a lot because all women of Kazakhstan were waiting for this verdict, all those who kept silent their whole life about rapes. For ages, centuries, this problem was concealed and finally there is a woman who has openly spoken about it,” lawyer Aiman Umarova told The Conway Bulletin.
“For the country it means a new milestone when the government paid attention to women’s rights, to this social problem, and towards abuse against women.”
While some were celebrating the case as a step towards equality there has been a backlash. The rape victim and her family have had to ask for police protection as they have been receiving death threats from friends and family of the attackers.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) pledged to increase its investment plans in Kazakhstan to $1b in 2017. So far in 2016, the EBRD has invested around $900m. At a meeting in Shymkent in Southern Kazakhstan, EBRD country director Janet Heckman also pledged increased investment in the utility sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna failed to obtain a review of a US court case that deemed the fund liable for the misrepresentation of BTA Bank bonds sold abroad in 2010-2012. The US court said in February that the Kazakh fund had concealed information regarding dealings with BTA that led to the bank’s default in 2012. The decision was significant because it marked an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act which protects activities by sovereign wealth funds.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government said that it would ditch price controls of AI-80 grade petrol from 2017. The move is inline with a policy developed last year. It ditched price controls of AI-92 and AI-94 in September 2015 shortly after a sharp devaluation in the Kazakh tenge. The tenge had taken a nosedive after a peg to the US dollar was scrapped, putting the government’s price controls under major pressure.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Amsterdam-based Nostrum Oil & Gas posted a decline in revenues it its Q3 report this week, but that didn’t stop investors buying its stock.
Nostrum’s stock price climbed back to November 2015 levels, seemingly dispersing the tough months of 2016, when oil prices plunged to around $30/barrel.
The company successfully cut costs and hopes to contain the drop in production to around 10% this year. Next year, the company will further reduce costs once it starts sending its oil through the KazTransOil pipeline due to be completed in Q2 2017.
“We look forward to realising a significant decrease in transportation costs once the KTO pipeline connection is complete by Q2 next year,” CEO Kai-Uwe Kessel said in a statement.
“Our focus now turns towards the 2017 drilling programme and delivering our major infrastructure project, GTU3, on time and on budget.”
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Copper prices have gained around 12% to a 16-month high of $2.67/lb, since the election of Donald Trump as US president-elect, showing the power of his words.
Trump’s plan to invest $1 trillion in overhauling ageing infrastructure across the United States gave a boost to the global market price of copper, a key element for large construction projects.
Companies in Central Asia that focus on copper production, chiefly Central Asia Metals and KAZ Minerals in Kazakhstan, also benefited from the Trump effect on copper prices.
Both companies saw their share prices soar in the London Stock Exchange by around 20 – 25% in the past two weeks, a sign that the commodity slump could timidly start to reverse.
Central Asia Metals seized the opportunity to acquire a new deposit in Kazakhstan this week, which showed just how bullish the market has become.
Zak Mir, an analyst for the Proactive Investor website, said that Central Asia Metals’ stock price, which is already at its historical high, is on track to reach 240p/share within the next few months. This would be almost double this year’s low of 124p/share.
It’s been a roller coaster year for commodity companies in the region and this doesn’t look like changing.
Despite the uncertainty, the metals market might well reverse their downward trend before oil prices start growing again, marking an important split between the two sectors.
The Central Asian and South Caucasus region has been badly hit by the fall in commodity prices in the last two years. Any sign of recovery is good news.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan-focused Nostrum Oil and Gas posted a 35% fall in revenues for the first nine months of 2016, compared to the same period last year, a slight recovery compared to H1 results. Nostrum said it had successfully cut costs to counter sustained low oil prices. Production averaged 38,900 barrels/day in the reported period, down 12% from 2015. The company said it expects production to average 40,000 barrels/day by year-end.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch accused Kazakhstan of deliberately creating mountains of red tape to thwart and frustrate labour unions. In a report entitled: “Kazakhstan: Workers’ Rights Violated, Restricted”, HRW said that the Kazakh elite grew nervous of labour unions after a strike in 2011 ended with police shooting dead several protesters. HRW said that the government had imposed a registration system on labour unions as a way of monitoring their activities.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
ALMATY, NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with Bloomberg News, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev appeared to cautiously rule out a straight handover of power to a family member.
The 76-year-old leader also said that he would be prepared to govern for another five year term from 2020 if he felt well enough and had strong enough public support.
Speculation has been mounting for years over Mr Nazarbayev’s succession plans. Many analysts have suggested that Mr Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, Dariga who is now a senator, may be being lined up to take over from him.
“I’m not envisaging succession for my children, I don’t think that’s a question for us,” he said. “Our transfer of power is spelled out by the constitution.”
This nuanced reply appears to suggest that Mr Nazarbayev’s successor will have to win power through an election, as the constitution states. Western vote monitors, though, have never judged an election in Kazakhstan to be either free or fair.
And, on the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election this month, Mr Nazarbayev said he was confident the incoming US President would mend US-Russia relations, a positive step forward for global international relations.
“The best democratisation, say of Russia and all countries, is to have the West in friendly relations with all of us,” he said.
Kazakhstan is dealing with a sharp economic downturn triggered by a collapse in oil prices and a recession in Russia. Mr Nazarbayev also said in the interview that he was looking to strengthen the banking system.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
