Tag Archives: Tajikistan

Tajikistan’s Central Bank increases interest rate

JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate by two percentage points to 11%, its highest since 2009. It had kept the interest rate constant at 8% for over one year until March, when it was raised to 9%. The Central Bank said the move is in line with a policy to combat inflation and restore confidence in the country’s ailing banking sector.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

IS threat worsens in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan

JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian defence minister Sergei Shiogu said that if countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus ever sink into Syria-like civil war scenarios, Russia will use its military to intervene. Russia has carried out airstrikes in Syria against the IS extremist group. According to official sources, the number of South Caucasus and Central Asian citizens fighting for IS in Syria is rising.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Tajik court sentences Salafist activist

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Tajik court jailed Mukhammadi Rakhmatullo, alleged leader of Salafi, a banned conservative Islamic movement in Tajikistan, for seven years in prison. Rakhmatullo had allegedly returned to Tajikistan after a period working abroad and had continued to run the banned Salafi opposition movement. He was arrested in February during a mass security operation that jailed dozens of Salafists.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Trade and GDP shrink in Tajikistan

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s Statistics Committee said that trade turnover in H1 2016 shrank by 2.8%, compared to the same period last year. Overall, Tajikistan posted a negative trade balance, as it exported goods and services worth $439.4m and imported $1.5b. The Committee also said that the country’s GDP grew by 6.6% in H1, in line with government projection of a 7% growth by the end of the year.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Tajikistan establishes relations with Ecuador

JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Makhmadamin Makhmadaminov, Tajikistan’s Permanent Representatives to the United Nations, signed an agreement with his Ecuadorian counterpart to establish relations between the two countries. Establishing diplomatic relations with distant countries is a window- dressing exercise for Central Asian and South Caucasus leaders.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Briefing: Tajikistan’s Rogun dam project

JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — >>Right. Let’s get started. The Rogun Dam. What is it and what is it all about?

>>For Tajikistan and President Rakhmon, the Rogun dam project is vitally important. If it is ever built, and the plans have been knocking around since the Soviet era, the Rogun dam will be the tallest dam in the world at up to 335 m. It will also double Tajikistan’s power generation capacity. The problem is that the dam has proved highly controversial, domestically and internationally, and is also expensive to build.

>>Hang on. Slow down. This is a lot take on. So, Rogun is massive but why is it controversial?

>>It’s controversial because human rights group have accused the government of forcibly moving thousands of people away from the Vakhsh River valley, the area that will be dammed and flooded. The government has also imposed a Rogun dam tax on people to pay for the project. This has gone down badly with human rights groups. Externally, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan’s neighbour, hates the idea of the Rogun dam. It worries that the dam will divert water from irrigating its cotton fields.

>>How serious are Uzbekistan’s concerns?

>>Central Asia is a fragile region. If Uzbekistan is making threatening noises
towards Tajikistan, people need to take notice. Analysts and diplomats have spoken of water wars in Central Asia. I’m not saying that the Rogun dam is going to trigger a war but it is another pressure point that people need to watch.

>>Got it. So with all these obstacles and problems why is Tajikistan pushing for problems?

>>It’s become Rakhmon’s pet project. He probably has another five or ten years left in office and it really feels like he wants and needs the Rogun dam to be his legacy. It’s also become vitally important for Tajikistan’s electricity generation sector. Electricity is becoming an important export commodity for Tajikistan as it has signed up to be the main power generator for the so-called CASA-1000 project.

>>CASA-1000? What is that?

>>It’s the World Bank-backed project to build a power transmission network from Tajikistan to Pakistan. It will cost around $1.2b, cross Afghanistan and be operational, if it all goes to plan, by 2019. The challenge is both security and power generation.CurrentlyTajikistan, and to a lesser extent Kyrgyzstan, doesn’t have the capacity to generate enough power to meet its CASA- 1000 commitments. That’s where Rogun comes in.

>>And the financing? This seems to be an expensive project just when the region is trying to deal with a financial crisis. Where is the finance coming from?

>>Good question. We’re not entirely clear. We’ve only been told that it is a mix of government funds and private investment. Who the private investors are and what their motives are is unknown.

>>I see. So what next?

>>Well, the Tajik government awarded a $3.9b contract to Italian builder Salini Impregilo to start construction work on the dam. We’re still waiting for work to begin but Salini Impregilo has said it will kick off soon. This has been a stop-start project so actually seeing the diggers go in and the workers start to build the dam is important. If this does happen, it’ll dominate news headlines for years to come.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Tajikistan publishes negative forecasts for Somoni currency

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s finance ministry published a negative forecast for the somoni currency exchange rate over the next few years, saying that the economic crisis that has hit the region since mid-2014 could be far from over. According to the official forecast, the somoni will weaken against the US dollar by 21% next year and by a further 8% in 2018. This week the official exchange rate was 7.9/$1. Much like other currencies in the region, the Tajik somoni has lost a third of its value sine mid-2014, mainly because of a recession in Russia, weakness in oil and gas prices and a drop in confidence in Emerging Markets.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Tajik President appoints new FinMin

JULY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon appointed former deputy Central Banker Umed Latifov to the post of finance minister, replacing Shavkat Sokhibov. Tajikistan’s economy has suffered from a regional economic downturn which has dried up worker remittances from abroad. US-educated Mr Latifov is much younger than his predecessor and has an international profile. His appointment at the Central Bank in May 2015 was his first job in Tajikistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Gazprom drills gas well in Tajikistan

JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian gas company Gazprom said it drilled a second well at its Sarikamysh gas and condensate field in western Tajikistan, eight years after winning the licence. In 2013, Gazprom drilled at Sarikamysh the deepest well in Central Asia at 6,540m. Murod Jumazoda, head of the government’s Geology Department, said the project is still some way off producing gas.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Tajikistan’s Rogun dam start surprises people

DUSHANBE, JULY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The revival of the Rogun hydropower project, for which Tajikistan awarded a $3.9b tender last week, surprised both analysts and people living in Dushanbe.

Most had assumed that the project first dreamt up under the Soviet Union had been mothballed. There had been no major break- through on the project for the past few years and the middle of an economic downturn is no time to start a major infrastructure project.

Still, it appears Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon had other ideas. Now, Italy’s Salini Impregilo, the construction company that won the tender, says it will complete the dam, set to be the world’s tallest, and the first two power stations by 2018.

Manu, a 28-year-old student in Dushanbe, summed up many Dushanbe-residents’ thoughts when he said that he had believed that the dam would never be built.

“I thought we would not build Rogun any time soon,” he told the Bulletin’s Tajikistan correspondent. “It all happened unexpectedly but I am excited.”

If Rogun is successfully completed it will double Tajikistan’s power production and turn it into a major regional electricity exporter.

Analysts, though, were sceptical about the aggressive timeline that Salini Impregilo has set.

Filippo Menga, researcher at the University of Manchester who has studied Tajikistan’s hydropower, told the Bulletin that large dams are never built on time.

“There is still uncertainty on who is going to fund the Rogun dam, delays are clearly foreseeable. The timeline is simply not realistic,” he said.

The Rogun dam project is cer- tainly ambitious and will change Tajikistan’s fortunes if it is success- fully completed. It will also leave a lasting legacy for the 63-year-old Mr Rakhmon who, if reports are to be believed, is already thinking about his succession strategies.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)