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The Regions This Week
March 8, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Eurasia
Kazakhstan’s largest lender by assets Halyk Bank is set to open a subsidiary bank, dubbed Tenge Bank, in Uzbekistan within a month, Aslan Talpakov, chairman of the bank’s board, has said. The Uzbek and Kazakh central banks signed an agreement in 2018 which relaxed regulatory re- quirements for setting up operations by subsidiar- ies of Kazakh banks.
Apple blocked Iranian-made applications from its system with a change of rules, ICTNA report- ed. The California-based technology behemoth does not have a presence in Iran due to US sanc- tions, but its products including iPhones remain much sought-after devices in the country, mean- ing several thousand Iranian app developers that produce software in Persian contribute to a local Apple ecosystem.
The IMF issued a broadly optimistic forecast for Georgia’s economy, foreseeing 4.6% GDP growth in 2019. Significant infrastructure investment is expected to compensate for weaker external de- mand and slower credit growth.
Centerra Gold will resume dividend payments after finalising its 2017 Kyrgyz settlement. The deal resolved a longstanding dispute over the flagship Kumtor gold mine, concerning the issue of 4.6mn shares as part of its plan to purchase Thompson Creek Metals.
Azerbaijan is to get a new airport to be built near the city of Shaki in the northwest of the country during 2022-2023, Trend reported refer- ring to discussions at a cabinet meeting. The construction is mentioned as part of the strategic plan of Azerbaijan Airlines for 2018-2025.
Kazakhstan’s central bank kept its policy rate unchanged at 9.25%. The regulator has previ- ously hinted that it may raise the policy rate from
its current level, but recent strong comments by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has introduced a new cabinet and central bank gover- nor, may have deterred it from doing so.
Danish platform Valuer specialised in start-ups and innovations says business leaders have start- ed to view Armenia as a technological and inno- vative hotspot, Armenpress reported. Valuer has made a list of 25 cities with the best start-ups, and the Armenian capital Yerevan ranks sixth.
Mongolia’s growth is expected to reach 8% in 2019, an IMF official said. Last year, growth was partly boosted thanks to the $5.5bn bailout agree- ment reached with the IMF and other lenders in February 2017.
The World Bank approved a $58mn grant for financing the Tajikistan Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project. The project seeks to provide improved access to water supply and sanitation services for households, schools and health clin- ics in the poorest regions of southern Tajikistan.
Fresh from having his resignation request reject- ed by Iran’s president after both government fig- ures and — to some astonishment — top officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) made it clear that he was too valuable to lose, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif declared that global power shifts have all but brought about the end of US global hegemony.
Kazakhstan plans to cut its oil exports by around 2% in 2019 to 71mn tonnes, the Kazakh energy ministry told Reuters. The move is tied to plans for a general oil output reduction. Kazakhstan aims to produce 89.5mn tonnes in 2019, down from 90.3mn tonnes last year, given upcoming main- tenance shutdowns at the Central Asian nation’s three largest oil fields.