NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In what it described as a push to promote competition, the Kazakh government said it will cut subsidies for bread, petrol, and animal husbandry. In particular, the government will cut subsidies for wheat producers from 2,500 tenge/tonne ($8) to zero. The government may be looking to save money.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s government wants to tweak the national budget for a second time this year to increase funding for one of its key policies — creating an improved universal health care system.
Finance minister Nodar Khaduri said that increased revenue from tax and a reduction in the regional aid budget would pay for the increase in health care spending.
Earlier this year, the ruling Georgian Dream government submitted a budget which included a drop in revenue raised by taxes, a fall it linked to a regional economic downturn. That thinking has now changed.
The universal healthcare that the Georgian government wants to build is one of their headline policies. It will now absorb around 16% of the health ministry’s total budget.
“It is a successful program and many people apply to use it,” media quoted Mr Khaduri as saying. “So it became necessary to add funds to this program.”
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – State workers in Kazakhstan will receive pay rises next year of 7-29% to offset the devaluation of the tenge, media reported quoting social development minister Tamara Duysenova. The figures show just how pronounced the anticipated devaluation-linked inflation is likely to be.
The tenge has fallen by 40% in value since its US dollar peg was ditched in August and analysts have warned of a corresponding surge in inflation.
This has already begun to seep through. The Central Bank said that annualised inflation jumped to 9.2% in October, double the rate in September. The announcement on the size of the state pay rises, though, suggests more price rises are likely.
Most of the state employees that Ms Duysenova said would receive a pay rise were doctors, nurses and teachers.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In what is likely to be the only IPO on an international market by a company from Central Asia and the South Caucasus this year, Bank of Georgia completed the listing of its subsidiary Georgia Healthcare Group on the London Stock Exchange.
It sold a 29% stake in Georgia Healthcare Group, raising around £63m ($96m) to invest into two hospitals it has bought in the past couple of years in Tbilisi.
Georgia Healthcare Group is the largest private healthcare provider in Georgia, owning 42 hospitals and medical centres.
Although the IPO came in below the initial price range, Nikoloz Gamkrelidze, Georgia Healthcare Group’s CEO, was upbeat.
“A public listing enhances our ability to take advantage of the significant market growth prospects of the Georgian healthcare sector,” he said. “The primary proceeds will be used to fund our immediate growth plans, aimed at helping us achieve at least a doubling of our 2015 revenue by 2018.”
Reports earlier this year also suggested new legislation introduced by the Georgian government had forced Bank of Georgia to sell a large stake in its healthcare unit.
Georgia Healthcare Group had targeted a price range of 215-315p but instead had to settled for 170p, perhaps a reflection of the poor economic conditions in Emerging Markets in general and in the South Caucasus in particular. Since announcing the IPO in August, Bank of Georgia shares have lost 13% on the London Stock Exchange, possibly setting its healthcare unit up for its lower-than-hoped-for IPO pricing.
Even so, the Georgia Healthcare Group IPO, gave Western investors a rare chance to buy into the former Soviet Union. Over the past couple of years, London IPO plans from Kazakh companies in particular, have been shelved as an economic downturn triggered by low oil prices, worries about Emerging Markets and a recession in Russia bite.
Both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have announced they want to carve up some of their main state-owned companies and that they will look for IPOs on major international stock markets but these sales are a long way off.
Georgia Healthcare Group joins its parent company Bank of Georgia as the only two Georgian companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Unknown assailants armed with knives attacked four Tajik army officers in Dushanbe, killing two of them. The army has not given a motive for the attack although the officers were involved with Tajikistan’s military draft. Officially at least, all Tajik men have to serve two years in the army.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – An investigation by a Kazakh website showed a company linked to the youngest daughter of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Aliya Nazarbayeva, is charging 2% for online payments through Kazakhtelecom.
In June, Kazakhtelecom, Kazakhstan’s largest provider of internet services, imposed a 2% charge when customers paid for its services online.
An investigation by the informburo.kz website showed that the service company Instant Payments had become the intermediary for these transactions and was the ultimate beneficiary of the 2% fee. Ms Nazarbayeva is the founder and owner of Instant Payments, informburo.kz reported. Within a day, the report had disappeared from the informburo.kz website but not before it had triggered public anger.
Typical of this anger was a comment from Vladimir P on alau.kz. “We are living a crisis, but everything goes in their large, immense pockets, not to the people,” he wrote.
Neither Ms Nazarbayeva nor Kazakhtelecom have commented. There is no suggestion of any wrong-doing.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(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)
NOV. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tony Adams, the former England and Arsenal footballer, has become the unlikely cheerleader of Azerbaijan’s healthcare system.
Media quoted him as saying that he credits doctors in Azerbaijan, where he is working as director of football at the country’s biggest club Gabala, with saving his life with heart surgery.
He said that he referred himself to the Gabala team doctor after feeling chest pains.
“The brilliant surgeons at the Medical Plaza (hospital) did a fantastic job, as has been reiterated to me by my cardiologist in the UK,” he said.
“I know full well that without the brilliance of Dr Uzeyir Rahimov and his team I would not be alive now: a minor heart operation saved my life.”
Mr Adams, 49, is one of England’s most successful living footballers. He played more than 650 times for Arsenal, between 1983 and 2002, winning 10 trophies. He also played 60 times for England.
Mr Adams started managing Gabala in 2010.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A journalist documenting forced labour practices in east Uzbekistan said his office had been burnt down in an act of sabotage, media reported. Dmitiry Tikhonov also said that files with data on a number of specific cases appear to have been stolen from his office in Angren.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Armenian Orthodox Church reconsecrated the Cathedral of St George in Tbilisi, considered one of its most important churches in the region. The Cathedral was closed in 2012 for restoration work.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
