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The Regions This Week
January 12, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eurasia
Egg prices in Iran — a key point of contention
in the anger over food prices said to have driven the original protests that set off the nationwide wave of Iranian demonstrations over the new year period — were cut under the government’s fixed price mechanism.
Iran banned the teaching of English in primary schools following a warning from Supreme Lead- er Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that early learning of the language opens the way to a Western “cultural invasion”.
Iran’s home mortgages market got a new com- petitor with Bank Melli Iran moving into the busi- ness as part of a push to break the monopoly held by Bank Maskan. The central bank has changed the rules to allow all of Iran’s banks to enter the mortgage market, but poor anticipated returns have curtailed interest.
Outgoing Central Bank of Iran governor Valiollah Seif urged caution among the public in crypto- currency investing. It appeals to some Iranians as it is not subject to sanctions. The regulator “would not guarantee investment in Bitcoin”, he said. Meanwhile, a possible Initial Coin Offering (ICO) of the “gram” was announced by popular social networking app service Telegram.
Some 5,000 prisoners on death row in Iran could be spared following a softening of the drug traf- ficking law. Iran is second only to China for the number of prisoners executed in recent years.
Kazakhstan has tightened its media law. Jour- nalists now require pre-article permission from mentioned individuals in relation to “personal, family, medical, banking, commercial [informa- tion] and other legally protected secrets” and anonymous comments on news websites are prohibited. Individuals must register their identity with the government prior to posting a comment.
A direct bus-service link between Uzbek capital
Tashkent and southern Kazakh city Shymkent resumed after 17 years. All cross-border bus links between the two countries were interrupted in 2000 due to bilateral tensions.
GDP growth in Kazakhstan in 2017 officially came in at 4% y/y compared to economic expansion of just 1% in 2016. The World Bank expects growth to moderate to 2.6% this year as the effects of the Kashagan oil field relaunch and fiscal stimuli wear off. Industrial output grew by 7% while oil output increased 10.5% in Kazakhstan last year.
Moldovan businessman Anatolie Stati said he will
ask bailiffs to sell a $5.2bn stake in Kazakh- stan’s Kashagan oil field owned by Kazakh sover- eign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna if Astana fails to pay a $500mn arbitration award to him.
Azerbaijan's financial market watchdog revoked the operating licence of Demirbank, a medium- sized lender. It had been struggling for several quarters with low capitalisation and with repaying creditors.
Assets of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) contracted by 28.9% y/y to AZN8.7bn ($5.1bn) in 2017. The lender underwent a restructuring of its debt last year, whereby $3.3bn worth of foreign obligations were swapped for government-backed ones in a state rescue.
Kyrgyz PM Sapar Isakov sacked his country's en- voy to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), San- jar Umotaliyev, "due to a failure to properly outline the draft law on ratification of the EEU's Customs Code Treaty".
The Kyrgyz government asked Chinese company Full Gold Mining to discuss the company’s dismissal of 370 miners in southern Kyrgyzstan. The workers at the Ishtamberdi mines refused to accept contract changes which cut salaries and contradicted the labour code. Full Gold said it had financial issues.