NOV. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Pakistan wants to export Tajik electricity on to other consumer countries, Pakistani media quoted a senior government official as saying. The announcement is, potentially, good news for Tajikistan which is looking for markets for its hydropower. Tajikistan and Pakistan are working on a grid system called CASA-1000.
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(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)
NOV. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Tajik somoni currency has fallen by 7% against the US dollar this year and 2% in the last week, mainly due to the falling value of the Russian rouble, threatening its economic stability. Remittances from Russia account for around half of Tajikistan’s GDP.
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(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Tajikistan have said a new law which means parliament has to approve all foreign funding is an attack on free speech and will force many NGOs to close, media reported. The Tajik government has said it needs the law to stop outside countries spying.
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(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan claims it is on track for a cotton production target many thought unrealistic when the government announced it earlier in the year.
Avesta.tj, the Dushanbe-based news agency, quoted the country’s ministry of agriculture as saying 373,000 tonnes of its 408,000 tonne target have already been gathered.
Cotton plays a key part in Central Asia’s economy, although it is controversial as human rights campaigners have criticised all the Central Asian states of using forced labour to pick the harvest.
In 2013, the US State Department Trafficking in Persons report said: “Some Tajik children and possibly some adults were subjected to agricultural forced labor in Tajikistan — mainly during the fall 2012 cotton harvest — but this exploitation occurred to a lesser degree than in 2011.”
That may be because cotton production itself has become steadily less profitable. Typically, Tajikistan exports raw cotton to Russia, China, Turkey and Iran. Efforts to develop finished cotton products in the country’s mills have been harmed by chronic electricity shortages that tend to begin right after the season finishes.
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(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Egypt have charged four Tajik men with recruiting for the extremist group Islamic State (IS), the US-fund Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported quoting officials at the Tajik embassy in Cairo. Central Asian states are increasingly worried about young disenfranchised men joining IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At least one of the thousands of inmates freed last week under a massive amnesty sanctioned by Tajikistan’s government to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the national constitution appears to have been let out too soon.
Tabur Gafurov, 31, killed his 55-year-old father during a heated argument after he returned to his family home in Sogd region, northern Tajikistan, reported Tajik outlet Asia Plus.
The incident has called into question Dushanbe’s decision to release so many prisoners at once, undermining what one regular observer of politics in the country says is an attempt by President Emomali Rakhmon to project his domestic political power.
“The amnesty is classic authoritarianism at work,” he said. “He wants the population to know that he can give freedom or take it away as he pleases,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – On yet another trip to Beijing, Tajik President Emmomali Rakhmon agreed a deal with Chinese PM Li Keqiang to increase China’s investment in energy, transport and agriculture. Although no details of the deal were released it does underline China’s increasingly dominant investor position.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan will have to increase its imports of grain over the next three years to cover a growing population, a ministry of economic development official told Tajik media. The news will disappoint analysts who had hoped that a gradual rise in grain production would reduce expensive imports.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
OCT. 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran said it had reached a deal with indebted Tajikistan to restructure ownership at the Sangtuda-2 Hydropower plant(HPP) plant built and operated in the Central Asian state by the Iranian company Sangob.
The new deal extends the period of Iran’s ownership of the facility by a further two years to 2029, a condition reportedly necessary because of a $40m bill that Tajikistan’s troubled state energy Barqi Tojik firm owes the plant.
Although details of the deal remain shrouded in secrecy, the importance of this agreement is that Tajikistan is having to agree to relinquish ownership of some of its core assets to cover various debts.
Tajik news agency Asia-Plus quoted an unnamed source as saying the deal was actually signed back in September. In March this year, the 100 megawatt plant was briefly shut down, suggesting a dispute between the sides.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
NOV. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan produced 1m tonnes of cement for the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union, media reported. The boost in cement production is thanks to China which has built and operates a new cement plant. China has also paid for a massive infrastructure programme.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
