Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Iran drops tax on foodstuffs to Central Asia

SEPT. 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran has lifted an export tax on foodstuffs being sent to Central Asia and the South Caucasus, media quoted Abdollah Mohajer, the head of Mazandaran Province Chamber of Commerce, as saying. The export tax had covered a range of products including pistachio nuts, cabbages, dates and raisins. Ditching the export tax is likely to drop the price of sending foodstuffs to Central Asia by up to 20%. Iran is increasingly trying to tap into Central Asia and the South Caucasus as natural export markets for is various products.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Uzbekistan lifts decades-long currency controls

TASHKENT, SEPT. 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan released its soum currency from decade-long controls that have artificially bolstered its strength and allowed a Black Market to flourish.
Officially, the soum dropped by nearly 50% to trade at around 8,000/$1, roughly the Black Market level prior to the announcement that currency controls were to be lifted.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, in power since September last year, wants to increase civil liberties and he saw the dual currency rates as holding back investment. The currency controls effectively made investing in Uzbekistan twice as expensive for foreign companies as it should have been.
A Conway Bulletin correspondent in Tashkent said that hundreds of ordinary Uzbeks queued to exchange Uzbek soum into US dollars at banks and official exchange points rather than through Black Market dealers in the city’s bazaars.
While most people were happy that the currency controls had been lifted, others were more cautious. One of the main gripes was that the government would only allow the exchanges to go through on special bank cards, rather than through cash.
“Currency can only be bought on a conversion card, not cash? I mean you sell your dollars to the bank in cash, but you can buy it only on the card?” one man queuing at a bank said.
“The question is – what’s the use of it? After all, with the same success, I can buy currency on the Black Market and go abroad and spend it there with the same success. When will they start selling foreign currency in cash?”
Others were more upbeat.
“It is clear that the first stage of the reform will begin to work now. And I hope after some time we will be allowed to buy dollars in cash,” another man said.
Nearby, though, the impact of scrapping the currency controls was being felt in other ways. In an area of Tashkent’s biggest bazaar usually crowded with money changers, only policemen stood idly. The currency Black Market, so long a feature of Uzbek life, has been, at least temporarily, put out of business. Some people, though, ruefully said that it could rebound.
“The Black Market will eventually come back if cash cannot be bought in banks,” one woman said.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017

Mirziyoyev to visit Turkey in October

SEPT. 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev plans to visit Turkey in October, media reported by quoting Turkish government officials. The meeting will be one of Mr Mirziyoyev’s most significant since taking office in September 2016. Relations between Uzbekistan and Turkey under Mr Mirziyoyev’s predecessor, Islam Karimov, were strained. Turkey, though, is prominent in the region and can play a more involved role in Uzbekistan’s affairs.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

CURRENCY MARKETS: Uzbek soum collapses after pegs are cut

SEPT. 7 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s all eyes on the Uzbek soum after the Central Bank said last week that it would converge the dual currency exchange rate system that has been operating since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Under that system, the Black Market rate of the soum was roughly half the official rate.

And so it proved. As soon as controls over the official rate were scrapped, it fell by 48% to 8,100/$1. The unofficial rate, as measured by the uzdollar.com, remained pretty much steady at around 7,700/$1.

In reality, the economic shock of ditching support for an official exchange rate will be limited. Currency controls previously meant that the Black Market rate had been widely used. Uzbeks were used to a rate of around 7,700/$1 to 8,800/1.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

 

Uzbek authorities scrap live TV show

AUG. 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan scrapped broadcasting live TV shows, programming that had been considered essential for displaying the country’s new era of openness under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that PM Abdulla Aripov wrote to journalists earlier in August explaining the policy change without giving specific reasons. Uzbekistan has looked to open up under Mr Mirziyoyev and has started broadcasting a 24-hour news channel.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

COMMENT: One year on, Mirziyoyev is opening up Uzbekistan

— Progress can still be derailed but so far, and only one year into the job, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s reforms in Uzbekistan have looked pretty good, writes Bulletin editor James Kilner

SEPT. 7 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In the year that Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been running Uzbekistan, he has done more to open up the country than even the most optimistic observer could have imagined in Sept. 2016.

On paper, at least.

Mirziyoyev has released a number of political prisoners and mended relations with neighbours but the main structural changes, other than scrapping currency controls, that should propel Uzbekistan into the 21st century, are still to come.

Under Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan had been trapped in a sort of USSR time-warp. Mirziyoyev has promised to unravel this iron casing.

He has scrapped the dual currency system that made it more expensive to buy the soum on the official market, made noises about making it easier for foreign investors to take money out of the country and signed various decrees that will ditch the hated external passports needed to leave the country.

But these remain, in the large part, promises. Still, this is a better, more open, start than many people had expected when the former PM emerged as Karimov’s successor.
He quickly shored up his power-base by demoting his main rival to the top job former economy minister Rustam Azimov.

And he has made sure that he has struck a genuinely popular note with ordinary Uzbeks, going out to the regions and promising to invest in infrastructure projects that will create jobs and trade deals with neighbours which should generate wealth for people living in Central Asia’s most populous country.

Mirziyoyev has also done something that Karimov was always too afraid to do. He has reached out to pious Muslims. While Karimov tried to drive Islam underground, Mirziyoyev was pictured breaking the Ramadan fast with religious leaders. A huge olive branch.

Mirziyoyev has promised much to many in his first year in power. In his second year he needs to deliver on his promises.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017

Uzbek authorities take 16,000 people off terror blacklist

SEPT. 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan have removed 16,000 people from a blacklist of 17,000 people with alleged links to extremist groups, media reported. Analysts said the move was another attempt by Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev to pursue more liberal policies and to create a clear departure from Islam Karimov, who ruled the country as an authoritarian dictator.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Lola Karimova quits UN job

AUG. 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a speech in Samarkand, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, second daughter of former Uzbek leader Islam Karimov, said that she would step down as the country’s representative to UNESCO. Instead, she said, she wanted to concentrate on running the charity named after her father. Karimova-Tillyaeva is currently based in Europe. She has fallen out with her elder sister Gulnara Karimova who has been kept under house arrest in Tashkent since March 2014. Islam Karimov died in September 2016 after ruling the country since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Uzbekistan frees former UN staff member jailed in 2006

AUG. 22 (The Conway Bulletin) — The United Nations said that Erkin Musaev, a former staff member who had been running a joint programme with the European Union in 2006 in Tashkent when he was arrested trying to leave Uzbekistan, has been freed. Musaev was imprisoned for various crimes, including embezzlement and espionage. The UN has always said that the crimes have been fabricated. Under Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan has released several political prisoners.

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(News report from Issue No. 341, published on Aug. 27 2017)

Uzbekistan joins IRENA

TASHKENT, AUG. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan joined the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental organisation set up to help member countries strengthen their sources of green power. IRENA has 152 members. Uzbekistan has previously shied away from joining international organisations. Under the presidency of Shavkat Mirziyoyev, though, it has become open to international cooperation.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 341, published on Aug. 27 2017)