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The Regions This Week
January 26, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Eurasia
Iran’s central bank stopped granting licences to
new private banks or commercial lenders follow- ing the collapse of major institutions that caused the savings of hundreds of thousands of deposi- tors to be frozen. The issue, mainly focused on credit institutions which run high-interest deposit accounts akin to pyramid schemes, is thought to have behind much of the anger that caused street demonstrations across Iran a month ago.
Iranian central bank chief Valiollah Seif warned he has control of Iran's currency markets, meaning speculators betting against the rial, which has sunk to an all-time low against the dollar, are playing a loser's game. There were reports of hard currency traders in Tehran refusing to trade. Seif said the rial would rebound in the coming months.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force is to mount a cloud seeding programme using drones to tackle an ever- worsening drought. The World Resources Institute says Iran will be among the 33 most water-stressed countries by 2040. The Iranians are contending with their driest winter in more than 30 years. The drought has exacerbated Tehran's problem with smog.
Kazakh retail sales were up 6.3% y/y in 2017
reaching KZT8.85tn (€22.3bn). The gain reflected a household consumption recovery driven by refreshed economic growth - GDP growth r eached 4% in 2017, up from the 1% growth recorded in 2016.
A bus fire in Kazakhstan killed 52 Uzbeks travel- ling to Russia for migrant work. Officials said it was caused by an open flame on a portable gas cooker being used to heat the vehicle. The bus did not have a passenger transport licence.
Kazakhs spent more than $1.12bn on new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in 2017, up 28.6% y/y.
Armenia's president Serzh Sarksyan proposed that Armen Sarkissian, a former PM and the country's current ambassador to the UK, run to become his successor on behalf of the ruling Republican Party in the March election.
Azerbaijan sentenced at least 25 journalists and activists to prison terms in politically motivated trials in 2017, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its World Report 2018. One journalist, who was investigating business interests of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his family, was snatched by the regime's intelligence services from exile in Georgia before being sentenced
to six years in jail by a Baku court.
Georgia's foreign trade deficit inched up
1.3% y/y to $5.25bn in 2017. Exports increased 29.1% y/y to $2.7bn, while imports rose 9.4% y/y to $7.98bn.
EU finance ministers removed Mongolia from their tax havens blacklist set up in December. Mongolia’s foreign minister said his country had impremented “a series of coordinated measures at all levels of government” in response to the blacklist without revealing specifics.
The black market rate of Turkmenistan's manat currency hit a new low at more than triple the official rate. The manat's unofficial weakness, amid strict currency controls, more accurately reflects Turkmenistan's economic crisis than the official fixed rate.
Turkmenistan made contributions to the National Pension Fund by business owners mandatory. Moreover, business owners will have to make retroactive payments stretching back to 2013.
The Turkmen state budget is desperately in need of more revenues. Revenue-raising measures have even included officials levelling fines on fortune tellers, whose occult services are popular in Turkmenistan.