NOV. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A land transfer deal between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan which was supposed to solve the neighbour’s long-running border dispute has been postponed, media reported. The row has flared into violence over the past couple of years and could even destabilise the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 6 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin)– Famed across the Soviet Union as the biggest and most beautiful of Central Asia’s formal gardens, the Botanical Garden in Bishkek is now, quite literally, dying.
Once a peaceful sanctuary of bright exotic flowers and their perfumed scents, the 152 hectare Botanical Garden is overgrown and decrepit.
There are few visitors and even fewer staff. Most left in the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed, dragging down people’s salaries too. Now just a handful of under-paid scientists tend to the garden.
A weather-beaten Dmitry Vetoshkin, was one of these.
“For such a small city as Bishkek having a Botanical Garden is a luxury,” he said. But it’s a luxury that is under increased threat.
Kyrgyzstan’s capital is growing and has swallowed up the Botanical Garden. It once lay on the southeast fringe
of the city. Now, it is ringed by busy road and houses. Property developers are pinching parcels of land to build houses and gardens.
But for most people, the political elite included, the fate of the Botanical Garden is of little concern. “While political parties promise to improve people’s lives during current election campaign, none of them
announced a course to take up and renovate our natural heritage, our Botanical Garden, that stands at the entrance of the city,” said Vetoshkin.
Kyrgyzstan held a parliamentary election on Oct. 4.
There has though, despite the lack of support from the political elite, been some sort of grassroots resistance against selling off or giving away the Botanical Garden to developers. Vetoshkin said citizen power helped to defeat a proposal from developers to build new greenhouses in exchange for taking a large slice of the garden to develop.
Even so, the reprieve may just be temporary. It’s difficult to see just where the Botanical Garden fits into modern Bishkek life.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A newspaper in Australia reported that the government was in talks with the Kyrgyz authorities to resettle refugees and asylum seekers in Kyrgyzstan. Under a hardline policy, Australia refuses entry to all migrants and refugees. Neither the Australian nor the Kyrgyz government have commented.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz PM Temir Sariyev inaugurated the second phase of a modernisation programme for the country’s biggest power plant outside Bishkek, a project considered vital for boosting the country’s decrepit power-generating infrastructure.
China agreed to fund the power plant upgrade, that will double capacity back to Soviet-era levels, in 2013 with a $386m loan from its Import-Export Bank. It handed the contract to strip out old Soviet-era kit and replace them with two new power producing units to China TBEA, a private company.
And Mr Sariyev was quick to praise China for its help in overhauling Kyrgyzstan’s power sector.
“I want to note the successful cooperation with China on the implementation of energy projects in the country and to express gratitude for the contribution to the economy of Kyrgyzstan,” he said according to media.
Earlier this year Kyrgyzstan opened a new power line that will transmit electricity from hyrdo- electric stations in the south of the country to its main population centres in the north without having to cross over Uzbek territory, as it had previously.
China has been investing heavily in infrastructure across Central Asia. It views this strategy as important for winning political influence.
Bishkek’s population is growing but its infrastructure has not been upgraded.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Stock markets saw commodities-focused companies lose terrain this week, despite a brief surge in oil prices above $50/barrel on Tuesday.
Kazakhstan-focused oil company Roxi Petroleum lost 16% in one week closing at 7.88p, perhaps driven down by technical issues slowing down its drilling operations at the BNG contract area in the western part of the country.
After peaking at 122.4p on Tuesday, mining company KAZ Minerals shares were down 8.5% to 105.7p on Friday. KAZ Minerals used to be called Kazakhmys.
In Toronto, Centerra Gold shares lost 3.5% to 7.15 Canadian dollars, continuing a 3-week slump following debates on the formation of a new government in Kyrgyzstan. The Kumtor gold mine in Kyrgyzstan is Centerra’s main asset and the company is a major taxpayer in the country. Centerra has said, though, that production at Centerra would be down this year on earlier forecasts.
A new government has now been formed in Kyrgyzstan, hopefully giving Centerra a stable partner to work with.
Shares in Bank of Georgia were down 4.5% to £19.11 on Friday.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT.31/NOV. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan as part of a tour of Central Asia. In Bishkek, Mr Kerry wanted to persuade the government that despite quitting its airbase, the US was still interested in Kyrgyzstan. In Dushanbe, Mr Kerry told the government to ease up on its crackdown of opposition parties.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s parliament reappointed Temir Sariyev as the country’s PM, one month after an election won by President Almazbek Atamabayev’s Social Democrats. Mr Sariyev will head the coalition government. He has been PM since May 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The tenge finally broke through the 300/$1 level this week. People in Kazakhstan watched their currency lose ground against the US dollar on Thursday and Friday, while the Central Bank, under a new leadership, refrained from any intervention. The official exchange rate reached the record-breaking level of 310/$1 late on Friday, an 11% fall in one week.
The Kyrgyz som lost 1% of its value in one week, hitting 70/$1 on Friday.
Other currencies in the region remained stable throughout the week.
In a rare statement, the Uzbek Central Bank said it would let the sum devalue faster in 2015, compared to 2014. The official exchange rate, currently at 2,692/$1, showed a 10% fall in the first 10 months of the year. But this is about half the unofficial rate. On the black market, $1 can be purchased for as much as 5,900sum, according to the dollaruz.com website.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan has the highest debt-to- GDP ratio of any country in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, spurring a heated debate this week in the Kyrgyz parliament.
MPs questioned Temir Sariyev, seeking endorsement to continue his job as PM, on the sustainability of Kyrgyzstan’s debt which reached $3.4b in November.
Oil and gas importers, like Kyrgyzstan, typically show higher level of debt compared to energy- rich countries. Kyrgyzstan has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 53% debt ratio.
And this is set to continue in the increasingly tight economic climate which has dragged down essential remittances from Russia to Kyrgyzstan. The IMF said Kyrgyzstan’s debt-to-GDP ratio would reach 60% in 2015 and 62% in 2016.
Kyrgyz deputies said they were worried the country might default under these circumstances.
Mr Sariyev dismissed the rumours of default indicating that other countries have far worse debt levels and do not default. According to Mr Sariyev debt is important for the Kyrgyz economy, financing important infrastructure projects.
Still, Kyrgyzstan shows the worst fiscal balance and debt ratios in the region. Armenia, also an energy importer, has a 41% debt ratio, and Georgia 38%, according to the IMF. Tajikistan posted a debt-GDP level of just 28% in 2014, but it will grow to almost 33% in 2015, a direct consequence of the regional economic downturn.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The amount of smuggled petroleum products flowing into Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan has increased enormously since the country joined the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union in August, Melis Turgunbayev, director of state-owned energy company Kyrgyzneftegaz, said. He said the flood of smuggled goods had halved the trade in legally imported petroleum products.
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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)
