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The Regions This Week
July 5, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 5
Eurasia
Turkmenistan launched a $1.7bn gas-to-liquids plant in the desert town of Ovadan-Depe outside the capital Ashgabat. The plant’s construction, partly financed by Japanese and Turkish invest- ment, is part of the Turkmen government’s effort to diversify the country’s economy away from reli- ance on natural gas exports.
At least 30 foreign workers were injured in a brawl that broke out at a site near the Tengiz oilfield where hundreds of Kazakh oil workers rallied to protest unequal labour and pay conditions among local and foreign workers. Unconfirmed reports, citing workers who took part in the event, said the number of protestors stood at "15,000" people.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian talked of the importance of creating a new national air carrier at a meeting on the development of the civil aviation sector. Independent Armenia previ- ously had two national carriers, first Armenian Airlines and later Armavia, but both fell into finan- cial difficulties and shut down.
Signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) “must comply with the terms
of the agreement to the same extent as Tehran does”, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said, IRIB reported. In a direct hit at the US, the Iranian president was suggesting a total abrogation
of the JCPOA by Tehran if the US continues to renege on its end of the deal after it unilaterally pulled out in May last year.
Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov said that
Uzbekistan would provide $45mn for a power transmission project in Afghanistan, Afghan news agency TOLOnews reported. The contribu- tion would be made to the construction of
a 200km-long power transmission line from Surkhan in Uzbekistan to Pul-e-Khumri in Afghanistan, which will cost $110mn.
The ADB plans to allocate $900mn to Azerbaijan within the framework of its new five year strategy, running from 2019 to 2023, bank officials told local media, as reported by Azernews. The new country strategy is intended to help create a more “diversi- fied, resilient, inclusive, and sustainable economy”, the development bank said in a statement.
The Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GDDG) ruling party initiated a constitutional amend- ment, with the aim of introducing a proportional system for parliamentary elections in Georgia from 2020, rather than compared to 2024 as set out in the transitional provisions attached to the new Constitution.
The governments of Tajikistan and Iran agreed on financing and completing the Istiklol Tunnel near Dushanbe, the Tajik Telegraph Agency reported. The tunnel is part of an Ahmadinejad-era highway vision, which would stretch from the port of Chaba- har, through Afghanistan, passing Dushanbe and heading into Chinese controlled East-Turkestan.
The first tourists to fly direct from Uzbekistan to Issyk-Kul lake in Kyrgyzstan, numbering 140 visi- tors, arrived on the inaugural Tashkent-Tamchy flight. This was the first summer holiday season international charter flight, which is expected to bring nearly 3,000 Uzbek tourists to Kyrgyzstan over the summer.
Russian gas giant Gazprom signed a five-year contract with Turkmenistan’s Turkmengaz to purchase natural gas. According to the agree- ment, Turkmengaz will supply up to 5.5bn cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas per year.
Annual consumer price index (CPI) inflation in Kazakhstan stood at 5.4% in June, according to data published by the country’s statistics office. In monthly terms inflation stood at 0.2% in June.