FEB. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Remittance flows from Russia to Tajikistan dropped by 8.3% in 2014 compared to 2013, the Tajik Central Bank said. Remittances are vital to the Tajik economy but have dried up slightly since sanctions and a drop in energy prices hit the Russian economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)
FEB. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s cotton exports, an important foreign currency earner, grew by 7% in January compared to a year earlier, local media reported. The increase bucks a trend of falling cotton exports from Tajikistan over the past few years. Extra revenue from the exports though are tempered by a global drop in cotton prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015
FEB. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan accused the government of cracking down on its activities in the build-up to a parliamentary election on March 1. The party’s chairman, Muhiddin Kabiri, told the AFP news agency that the party was facing “total pressure”.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The falling rouble has persuaded up to half of St Petersburg’s Central Asian casual work force to return home, the AFP news agency reported.
St Petersburg’s deputy governor, Igor Albin, reportedly said that 50% of the snow sweepers, normally from Central Asia, had left the city.
AFP’s correspondent in St Petersburg directly quoted the head of a snow sweeping company who gave similar insight, although with a lower percentage heading home.
“Almost 30% of the workers who left to spend New Year’s as usual with their families in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan have not come back,” he said.
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are most vulnerable to this trend. Tajikistan holds the dubious position as the country that is most reliant on remittances. These make up about 50% of its total GDP.
The Tajik Central Bank has tried to prop up its currency against the falling Russian rouble although it has warned that inflation is creeping up.
In Dushanbe, an immigration official told AFP that only half the number of Tajiks were leaving to take jobs abroad this year, compared to the same period in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s president Emomali Rakhmon sacked the managing-director at TALCO, the company that runs its aluminium smelter, media reported. No official reason was given for sacking Sadriddin Sharipov from TALCO which generates around 70% of Tajikistan’s foreign earnings.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
FEB. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Tajikistan has sentenced 13 members of a group linked to the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) to jail for 9-12 years for trying to recruit young men to travel to Syria to fight for the extremist organisation IS, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
FEB. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a major boost for the retail market in Tajikistan, Auchan, the French supermarket brand, has agreed to open up its first franchise in Dushanbe later this year.
Media said that Auchan had signed a deal with French distributor Schiever to manage the stores.
It did not report where exactly the store would open but it did say that it would stock mainly Russian produce and open in 2015.
Schiever already runs Auchan’s stores in Poland.
The news is, obviously, good for Tajikistan which has been short on positive economic news lately. It’s also a departure from the norm.
Headlines from Tajikistan recently have focused on major Chinese expansion but little investment from European retailers.
It will also shake up the Tajik retail sector which has been dominated by small shops selling goods of variable quality. The Auchan store will, according to press reports, be roughly the size of a football pitch.
The Auchan store project is partly financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) which has expanded its portfolio of projects across the region. In 2014, the EBRD said, it invested 100m euro into Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
>>Clashes breakout after Tajik is accused of murder>>
FEB. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A group of Kazakhs attacked Tajik homes in a village near Kazakhstan’s border with Uzbekistan.
The police had earlier accused Navmidin Narmetov, a Tajik, of killing Bakytzhan Artykov, a Kazakh in the village of Bostandyk, 150km south of the regional capital, Shymkent.
Friends and family members of the victim converged on the Tajiks’ homes, burning cars, attacking the Tajik-language school and shouting: “Go home!”.
A state of emergency was briefly proclaimed by the ministry of interior. In the southern region, internet connections and cell phone reception were frozen for days after the attacks. Online news reports, both in Russian and in English were censored across the country.
The alleged murderer was caught in Uzbekistan.
Inter-ethnic harmony is a particularly sensitive issue in Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has often spoken on the topic and in 2011, rioting oil workers in west Kazakhstan clashed with police. Several people died triggering the most serious crisis of Mr Nazarbayev’s presidency.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tribesmen in Yemen have released a Tajik doctor they kidnapped in October, media reported. Gulrukhsor Rofieyva, 36, was working for a Russian company when she was kidnapped. It’s unclear why her captors released her but they had demanded the release of tribesmen held by the government.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a boost for business in Tajikistan, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has agreed a $5m loan to AccessBank which specialises in lending to smaller companies, media reported. AccessBank was set up in 2010 by international lenders.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
