Tag Archives: Tajikistan

Tajik opposition leader freed

SEPT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Tajik court freed a high-ranking member of the Islamic Renaissance Party as part of a mass amnesty. Zurafo Rakhmoni was the only high-ranking woman arrested last year after an alleged attempted coup. She was serving a two-year sentence. More than 12,000 prisoners were freed in the amnesty. Ms Rakhmoni was the only one to be freed among jailed IRPT leaders.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

US on hunt for ex-Tajik police boss

AUG. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US State Department placed a reward of up to $3m for information on the location of Gulmurod Khalimov, the former head of Tajikistan’s special police force and a US-trained sniper defected to the IS extremist group last year. Shortly after arriving in Syria, Mr Khalimov was injured in an airstrike but has seemingly recovered and been promoted within IS to a senior command position.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Athletes from C.Asia and S.Caucasus win medals at Rio Olympics

AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the Olympics in Rio, Uzbekistan won four gold medals, including three in boxing. Kazakhstan once again pulled in a decent haul, winning three golds, including a first ever swimming win, five silvers and nine bronzes. Tajikistan also won its first gold medal since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Dilshod Nazarov won gold in the hammer, becoming an instant national hero in Tajikistan. In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan won a gold medal in taekwondo, Georgia won golds in wrestling and weightlifting and Armenia won a wrestling gold, its first for 20 years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Central Asian FMs meet in the US

AUG. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to boost the US’ regional profile, US Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a summit with all five foreign secretaries from Central Asia. Dubbed C5 +1, the meeting was a follow-up from its inaugural session in Samarkand last year. It’s important because the US has been accused of losing interest in the region since pulling its military out of Afghanistan in 2014.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 292, published on Aug. 12 2016)

Remittances in Tajikistan fall, again

JULY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s Central Bank said that the flow of remittances from abroad fell by 22% in the first half of 2016, compared to the same period last year. The Bank said that a sustained recession in Russia has slashed the value and the volume of remittances. Tajikistan is one of the world’s top remittance-dependent countries. Tajikistan and the rest of the region have been having to cope with the fall from a collapse in oil prices and a recession in Russia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Tajikistan turns down Kyrgyz request for extra power

DUSHANBE, JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s minister of energy, Usmonali Usmonzoda, said he had turned down a request from Kyrgyzstan for extra electricity because the Tajik power generating system did not have any spare capacity.

The inability of Tajikistan to send power to Kyrgyzstan shows just how interdependent countries in Central Asia are. It also comes at a time when extra scrutiny is being placed on the power generation systems in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan as they build up to powering the World Bank-backed $1.2b CASA-1000 power system to Pakistan.

At a press conference in Dushanbe, Mr Usmonzoda said that, due to rising industrial activity, Tajikistan does not have spare capacity.

“Kyrgyzstan asked for 2.5b kWh of electricity at 2.5 cents/kWh,” he told reporters. “This is a large volume and, because of the emergence of new domestic energy consumers, we decided to refrain from the supply.”

Last year, Tajikistan signed a short term supply agreement with Kyrgyzstan to export 146m kWh over the winter for 2.5 cent/kWh.

Now, though, Tajikistan may be looking for a better price.

Independent Bishkek-based energy expert Rasul Umbetaliyev told the KyrTAG news agency: “The minister diplomatically avoided answering directly, but the price for electricity exports from Tajikistan is currently 3.5 – 7 cents/kWh.”

Tajikistan is investing heavily in its power generating systems. It has approved a $3.9b project to build the Rogun hydropower system.

But with its economy stalling and industrial production lying stagnant rather than rising, production problems and not excessive demand could be holding back Tajikistan’s power exports.

Its electricity distributor, Barqi Tojik, has piled up $1.5b in debt. It hasn’t paid for the electricity it bought from power stations and it is still waiting to be paid by its largest customers.

The government is planning to split Barqi Tojik and bail it out.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Tajikistan to open railway to the south

DUSHANBE, JULY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan has finished building a new railway connecting the capital city with the south, that avoids the headache of passing through Uzbekistan.

The Dushanbe- Kurgan Tyube-Kulob route effectively lifts its southern region out of economic isolation and removes Uzbekistan’s ability to close the route at will and use it as a bargaining tool. The Soviet Union had built Tajikistan’s railway through parts of Uzbekistan to avoid the more challenging Pamiri terrain.

Usmon Kalandarov, deputy director of the Tajik Railways company, said that the railway, which will be opened on Aug. 24, was built with the financial support of Chinese Eximbank.

“The construction of five bridges and three tunnels on this road has been financed by the Chinese bank Eximbank with a loan of 72m somoni ($9.2m),” he said at a press conference.

In 2011, in retaliation for plans to build a dam that would divert water away from its cotton crops, Uzbekistan cut the original railway line. Other than a dangerous and unreliable single road that weaved its way through the Pamir mountains, this effectively cut off the south of the country.

Sardor, a 52-years-old local trader, told The Conway Bulletin correspondent in Dushanbe that he has been waiting for the railway to be finished.

“I bring fruits and vegetables from southern towns to Dushanbe and vice-versa. It is inefficient for me to use trucks, they are expensive and take a long time,” Sardor said as he sold melons. “I think the new railway will be good for me because I will pay less to transport goods, which will not have to go through Uzbekistan and be in trouble like before.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

China pursues Tajik gold

JULY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Chinese power engineering company TBEA received a licence to develop the Eastern Duoba and Upper Kumarg gold mines. The company, which won a tender to build a thermal power plant in Dushanbe in 2014, completed exploration works at the two mines in June. Chinese investment in Tajikistan has grown significantly in the past decade.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Chinese and European investors to buy Tajik fertiliser

JULY 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik government said that Chinese and European investors have shown interest in buying TojikAzot, a debt-ridden fertiliser plant in the southern province of Khatlon. TojikAzot stopped operations in 2008 when it halted gas imports from Uzbekistan. The company was privatised in 2002, when Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash bought a 75% share in the company. Mr Firtash was later accused of illegally buying the plant and a local court invalidated the privatisation in 2014.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

IMF considers loan to Tajikistan

JULY 26 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Negotiations for a $500m IMF loan are continuing, Jamoliddin Nuraliyev, deputy chief of Tajikistan’s Central Bank told local media. The IMF has scheduled a visit to the country in August to lay out details for the loan. Mr Nuraliyev said that the country needs support to see it through a “difficult economic period.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)