Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakh Halyk Bank not to pay dividends

MARCH 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh lender Halyk Bank said it might not pay dividends for 2015 as the company expects a sharp decline in earnings this year. “The board is considering paying no dividend this year,” Dauren Karabayev, deputy CEO at the bank, was quoted by the FT as saying. Mr Karabayev was also not confident regarding the coming year for Kazakhstan’s economy. “2016 will not be a strong year,” he said. Halyk Bank is controlled by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s daughter Dinara and her husband Timur Kulibayev, one of the country’s most high-profile businessmen.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakh and Azeri VTB change directors

MARCH 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Azeri and Kazakh subsidiaries of Russian bank VTB changed their directors. In Azerbaijan, Vugar Ismayilov left his post of deputy chairman after seven years. In Kazakhstan, Mikhail Oseyevski substituted Mikhail Yakunin as chairman after Mr Yakunin left the bank to join the Russian National Commercial Bank, formerly owned by the government of Crimea, now property of the Russian government.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakh election looms

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhs prepared to vote in a parliamentary election on Sunday, brought forward by a year after parliament said it had achieved its remit early. The election is expected to be a straightforward affair with the ruling Nur Otan party, which won 82% of the vote at the last election in 2012, winning easily again.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Gebrueder enters Kazakh market

MARCH 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Austrian logistics company Gebrueder Weiss said it had bought two subsidiaries of Germany’s Brockmueller Spedition in Almaty, entering the Kazakh market for the first time. The company said its new operations in southern Kazakhstan will serve as a transport hub between China and Europe.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Stock market: Central Asia Metals

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-based Central Asia Metals has performed well in the past weeks, after its stock price dipped to 124p on January 20, its lowest level since August 2013.

The stock had suffered from poor market conditions for commodities, but it picked up since it published an upbeat outlook for 2016, after it received government approval at the end of 2015 for the expansion of its Kounrad project in central Kazakhstan.

Analysts, however, remain cautious on the performance of the stock.

Peter Mallin-Jones, mining analyst at Peel Hunt which is a London based brokerage focused on small and medium sized companies, told The Bulletin that his downgraded share target price still held.

“The upward trend is in line with the general moves in the mining sector. KAZ Minerals is also showing a similar trend in the London Stock Exchange,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Kazakh Tele2 receives credit line

MARCH 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh mobile operator Tele2 signed an agreement for a long-term credit line with Kazkommertsbank, one of the country’s largest commercial banks. The company will use the funds to upgrade its network. Tele2 Kazakhstan and Altel completed their merger on March 1. Before the market was liberalised earlier this year, Altel, a subsidiary of state owned Kazakhtelecom, was the only company to own a 4G licence in Kazakhstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Italy charges company with corruption at Kazakhstan’s Kashagan

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Italian prosecutors charged Dinamo, an energy consortium registered near Milan, with paying millions of euros in bribes to Kazakh officials for a contract to service the giant Kashagan oil field.

The bribes, the prosecutors said, are part of a deep-rooted system of corruption used to win contracts in the oil services sector around the world. So far, ENI, Italy’s biggest energy firm, has not been involved in the legal proceedings, but analysts argue that the investigation might inevitably reach the former operator of Kashagan.

ENI holds a 16.8% stake in the Kashagan consortium of which Kazmunaigas, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, CNPC and Inpex are all part.

Italy is one of Kazakhstan’s main trade partners. Kashagan is supposed to start commercial oil production later this year after a three year delay.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Oil workers strike in Kazakhstan

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – About 200 people working for the oil services company Techno Trading, which is a sub-contractor for Mangistaumunaigas went on strike. They complained that the company had not paid them their quarterly bonuses. Industrial action is a sensitive issue in western Kazakhstan where police and demonstrators clashed in 2011, killing at least 14 people. Inflation is rising and the value of the tenge has dropped in Kazakhstan, straining worker-employer relations.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Malaysia buys up field in Kazakhstan

MARCH 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Malaysia’s Reach Energy Berhad said it offered $154.9m for a 60% stake in Palaeontol B.V., a Dutch-registered company that operates an onshore block in the Mangistau oblast in Western Kazakhstan. The fields in the block are known as Emir Oil. China’s MIE Holdings Corp owns Palaeontol. According to Reach Energy, the fields holds oil reserves of 10m tonnes.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Women march through Kyrgyz capital on March 8 to demand more rights

MARCH 8 2016, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Dozens of women protested in Bishkek against what they said was the patronising message sent out by the traditional March 8 International Women’s Day celebrations.

The march was a rare challenge to what has become one of the former Soviet area’s most popular and enduring holidays.

“Don’t sell 8th of March for flowers,” the marchers chanted. “We don’t want flowers, we need rights.”

Civic demonstrations, especially by pro-women’s rights groups are rare, if not unheard of, in Central Asia, where governments retain strict control and generally mistrust the rise of women in society.

Kyrgyzstan is something of an exception. It has more political plurality than other countries and counts a woman, Roza Otunbayeva, as a former head of state. She was president of Kyrgyzstan in 2010 and 2011, after a revolution overthrew her successor Kurmanbek Bakiyev. None of the other Central Asian states have had any significant female political or business leadership other than daughters of presidents.

Saadat, one of the march participants, told the Bulletin’s Bishkek correspondent that March 8 was not a holiday to celebrate spring and woman but something much more important.

“Instead of buying flowers and making profit for local flower shops, people would better support women’s crisis centres or female entrepreneurs,” she said.

“I think, one of reason why we were not dispersed on the square (bpolice) is that two female MPs were also with us on the square,” she added.

There is supposedly a quota of women in the Kyrgyz parliament of 30% although activists said the proportion of women in parliament had dropped to 12.4% from 19% in 2004.

Arina Sinovskaya, a member of a Kazakh feminist group, said their rally had been banned in Kazakhstan.

“In Kazakhstan, unfortunately, we cannot hold a march, so we came here to express our solidarity,” she said.

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(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)