JAN. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Central Bank has cut its refinancing rate for domestic banks to 9% from 10%, media reported. The refinancing rate is the cost of borrowing between financial institutions. The Central Bank said it had cut the refinancing rate to try and boost investment.
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(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)
JAN. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The New York Times newspaper inadvertently highlighted the still relatively obscure nature of Central Asia by printing an article in which it referred to Kyrbekistan instead of Kyrgyzstan. Independent only since 1991, statehood and identity are important markers for Central Asian countries.
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(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)
JAN. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the first session of the lower house of parliament after an election, Uzbek president Islam Karimov said Uzbekistan will never join a group that tries to recreate the USSR. Mr Karimov’s comments appear to be a reference to the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union which includes Kazakhstan, Armenia and Belarus.
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(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)
DEC. 27 2014, (The Conway Bulletin) — With gas supplies limited this winter, Kyrgyzstan has been reverting back to coal to keep its electricity and heating on, media reported. Media reported that state-owned coalminers produced 1.5m tonnes of coal in the first 11 months of last year, up by 22% from a year earlier.
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(News report from Issue No. 213, published on Jan. 7 2015)
DEC. 17 2014, (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan held a parliamentary election largely described as being designed to re-enforce the government’s authority. Only four pro-president parties were allowed to contest the election to the 150-seat lower house of parliament. Europe’s main election watchdog, the OSCE, said the election was uncompetitive.
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(News report from Issue No. 213, published on Jan. 7 2015)
DEC. 26 2014, (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek Central Election Commission set a presidential election for March 29 2015. It is thought that the incumbent president, Islam Karimov, will campaign in the election. He has been in power since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, although his personal authority has waned.
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(News report from Issue No. 213, published on Jan. 7
2015)
JAN. 7 2015, MONTREAL (The Conway Bulletin) — Readers looking for an accessible overview of one of the world’s most advanced societies 1,000 years ago, and also a peak at Central Asia’s glory days, should reach for Frederick Starr’s ‘Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane’.
The author, an academic based at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC,
takes the reader back to the world of flourishing Silk Road, long before the Russian tsarist armies arrived to colonise the “untamed” steppes and impose rule from Moscow. Starr focuses on the years 800 through to 1100, painting a milieu where education, philosophy and critical thought were highly valued and scholars were revered. The book takes readers right up to the ascension of the Mongols in Central Asia.
Starr is strongest when he describes the conditions that allowed trade to blossom in this period. He describes how Samanid rulers, operating around their capital of Samarkand, took care to limit taxes on locals, understanding that the ultimate success of their state and society rested on the continuing prosperity of traders and producers.
The strength of local mining, which yielded refined tin, lead, copper and other metals, also buttressed the local economy, Starr explains, which then allowed the Samanids to create an export-based economy.
The details in this book gives the reader the opportunity to fully grasp the intellectual activity of the age, and appreciate why orthodoxy — philosophical, religious, or otherwise — failed to take route in most
of the region.
>>’Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane.’ 680 pages, Princeton University Press (13 Oct. 2013)
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(News report from Issue No. 213, published on Jan. 7 2015)
>>Re-starting gas supplies could improve relations>>
DEC. 30 2014, (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has restarted gas supplies to Kyrgyzstan, ending an eight-month embargo.
This is significant as Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan relations had seemingly been drifting from bad to worse over border rows, water management and energy issues. Analysts had identified the cross-border tension as potentially destabilising to the whole region.
Media quoted Tahir Alimov, deputy director in Osh for Gazprom Kyrgyzstan, as saying that the gas started
flowing once again from Uzbekistan at 3am on Dec. 30. The resumption of gas supplies will be a major boon to Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev.
Kyrgyzstan has been negotiating with other countries across Central Asia to make up for the shortfall in Uzbek deliveries but, realistically, Kyrgyz officials were always going to fall short of making up for the lack of Uzbek gas.
Uzbekistan had switched off the gas supply to Kyrgyzstan in April when the current deal expired. Uzbekistan said that Kyrgyzstan didn’t want to negotiate a new deal.
Kyrgyzstan said that Uzbekistan wanted too high a price. At the same time Russia’s Gazprom completed a deal to buy Kyrgyzstan’s gas company and it seems that it, and not the Kyrgyz government, was able to negotiate a new deal.
Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg said that Uzbekistan and a Switzerland-based Gazprom-owned company had renegotiated the deal.
Perhaps, Gazprom has acted as a peace-maker.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 213, published on Jan. 7 2015)
DEC. 26 2014, (The Conway Bulletin) — Chinese energy company CNPC said it wanted to develop new gas fields in Uzbekistan. It wants to invest $277m in three fields — Dengizkul, Khojadavlat and East Alat — over the next five years. The announcement helps to secure China’s place as Central Asia’s biggest gas client.
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(News report from Issue No. 213, published on Jan. 7 2015)
DEC. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) said it had dispatched its mission to observe parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan later this month. The OSCE, Europe’s election and democracy watchdog, has already said it is going to send a limited mission because it expects the vote to be fixed.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
