JUNE 14 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s parliament ratified a deal to give Kyrgyzstan $100m of aid to help adapt to Eurasian Economic Union regulations for animal sanitary and customs procedures, media reported. Kyrgyzstan has previously complained that Kazakhstan was deliberately causing problems on its shared border.
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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)
ALMATY, JUNE 15 2017 (The Bulletin) — UN Security general Antonio Guterres completed a tour of all five Central Asian states, his first since taking the job six months ago, although human rights activists complained that he had taken too soft a line on a regional crackdown of journalists and dissenters.
Mr Guterres’ main message was that the governments of the region need to remain engaged with international organisations to reach their full potential.
“Kazakhstan has been a symbol of dialogue, a symbol of peace, a symbol of the promotion of contacts between cultures, religions and civilizations; and with its presence in the (UN) Security Council, an extremely important dimension in mediation, in relation to conflict,” he said in Astana.
In Ashgabat, a few days later, after attending a counter-terrorism conference Mr Guterres, a former Portuguese PM and UN high commissioner for refugees, took a tougher line on rights.
“Upholding the rights of freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in this region are fundamental to countering the threat that violent extremism poses,” he said.
Even so, with media freedoms and human rights on the retreat in the region, after a series of arrests of journalists and a crackdown on workers’ unions, activists accused Mr Guterres of going soft on the issue in favour of developing nodes of engagement.
Hugh Williamson, director of the Central Asia division at New York- based Human Rights Watch, said Mr Guterres had failed to meet members of local civil rights movements on his tour of the region and that describing Kazakhstan as a “pillar of stability” and Kyrgyzstan as a “pioneer of democracy” was sending out the wrong message.
“Central Asian leaders also pay close attention to what high-level visitors like Guterres focus on, also in public,” he said in a statement.
“Not only did Guterres fail to set clear expectations on human rights improvements across Central Asia, his praise for his largely authoritarian audience risks sending the message that trampling over human rights is fine.”
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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)
JUNE 16 2017 (The Bulletin) — On the sidelines of the Astana Economic Forum, Kazakh deputy foreign minister Roman Vassilenko said that there had been positive developments in bilateral relations with Uzbekistan since Shavkat Mirziyoyev took over as president in 2016. “Since September last year there have been positive developments with Kazakhstan and its relations with Uzbekistan,” he told journalists at a briefing. Mr Mirziyoyev has made improving relations with neighbours, tense under his predecessor Islam Karimov, a cornerstone of his presidency.
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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)
JUNE 12 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil and gas company Kazmunaigas is in advanced stages of its preparations for an IPO next year, the FT quoted its CFO Dauren Karabayev as saying. The Kazakh sovereign wealth fund Samruk Kazyna owns 90% of the company and the Central Bank owns the other 10%. Kazmunaigas will list alongside Air Astana and Kazatomprom next year on the new Astana Stock Exchange. There is also likely to be a secondary foreign listing but it is currently unclear where this will be, although analysts have said that London is a favoured option.
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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)
JUNE 12 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank said that it was road testing a Bitcoin application for selling short-term notes. Bitcoin is a controversial technology as it has been associated with money laundering and other crimes. It’s technology, though, has been acclaimed for allowing multiple small trades at a low cost. The Kazakh Central Bank said it was looking at using the technology for selling 100 tenge notes (around a third of a US dollar).
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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)
JUNE 12 2017 (The Bulletin) — The International Labour Organisation (ILO), a UN body, effectively accused Kazakhstan of ignoring its demands made 12 months ago to improve the rights of workers’ unions to operate. In a draft ILO committee memo, it said that the environment for unions to operate had worsened and not improved over the past year. Courts in Kazakhstan have disbanded the biggest trade union and imprisoned two union leaders for a series of unrelated offences. In 2016, unions organised a series of anti-government protests. The Kazakh government hasn’t responded to the ILO statement.
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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)
JUNE 13 2017 (The Bulletin) — Appearing to acknowledge that prisons had become a breeding ground for radical Islam, Kazakh officials said that they were going to set up a unit that would specifically look to counter the radicalisation of inmates. Commentators have previously criticised the Kazakh prison service for the poor conditions of its facilities and the ease that radical Islamic recruiters are able to turn previously moderate Muslims into extremists.
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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)
JUNE 6 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan cut its key interest rate to 10.5% from 11% because it said that its currency had recovered. The Kazakh Central Bank has steadily cut its interest rate from a high of 17% at the start of 2016. It has said that the Kazakh economy is recovering. This year, the tenge has increased in value by 5% against the US dollar.
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(News report from Issue No. 332, published on June 12 2017)
JUNE 8 2017 (The Bulletin) — Railway container services linking China with Iran via Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are due to begin this month after the sides agreed various deals in May, the Railway Gazette reported. It said that the 10,300km journey would take around 14 days rather than 40 days by sea.
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(News report from Issue No. 332, published on June 12 2017)
JUNE 8 2017 (The Bulletin) — Shanghai’s Stock Exchange said that it had agreed a deal to buy 25.1% of Astana’s planned new bourse. The Astana Stock Exchange is planned to open by the end of the year as the centrepiece of a new Astana International Financial Centre. It wants to attract foreign companies and has already said that its national companies — Air Astana, Kazmunaigas and Kazatompom — will list part of their companies on the Astana Stock Exchange.
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Copyright ©Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 332, published on June 12 2017)
