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The Regions This Week
April 5, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eurasia
Several LGBT Azerbaijanis have been arrested in Baku in what activists said was another coordinated raid on their community, eurasianet. org wrote on April 2. Minority Azerbaijan, an advocacy group for LGBT Azerbaijanis, said in
an April 2 statement that “police are trying to ‘hunt’ transgender people through the Internet.” The group reportedly identified more than a dozen people who were arrested.
Kazakhstan’s economic growth will slow to 3.5% in 2019 and 3.3% in 2020, down from the 4.1% growth reached in 2018, according to the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB's) Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2019. The drop is expected to occur as a result of lower oil prices and reduced growth in China and Russia.
Iran’s northeastern Razavi Khorasan province and the country as a whole should do more to trade with northern neighbour Turkmenistan, according to the regions governor Alireza Razm Hosseini. With Iran’s accession to a free trade zone area outlined by the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), neighbouring remote Turkmenistan will remain a non-EEU state sandwiched between Tehran and member countries of the trade bloc.
Uzbekistan's total external debt rose by 9.5% y/y to $17.3bn in 2018, according to latest figures published by the Uzbek central bank. The surge was likely a result of Uzbekistan undergoing
a rapid process of opening itself up to foreign investment in the past two years. The bank expects foreign debt to continue growing in 2019.
Total remittances to Uzbekistan from abroad amounted to $5.11bn in 2018, up from $4.89bn in
2017, state-run UzDaily news agency reported on December 17. The rise in remittances was likely supported by economic stabilisation in Russia, the main source of Uzbek remittances, which are equivalent to 13-15% of Uzbekistan's GDP.
Russian oil major Lukoil and Kazakhstan’s state- run oil and gas company KazMunayGas have signed a contract on the joint exploration development of the Zhenis block located on the Kazakh segment of the Caspian Sea, Lukoil said in a statement on April 3. Lukoil is ready to invest $350mn in the project.
Hundreds of Kyrgyz trucks have been stranded on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border since last week,. The press service of the State Revenue Committee of Kazakhstan has said the long tailback was due to an “unwillingness” on the part of Kyrgyz drivers to undergo customs inspections.
Snapp, the Uber of Iran, has hit a milestone by hitting 2mn fares a day. “Snapp Tehran is now larger than any Uber city globally,” co-founder Eyad Alkassar said, adding. “Snapp one of the fastest-growing internet companies in the world.”
Uzbekistan plans to build 25 solar power plants by 2030, deputy energy minister, Kherzod Khadzhayev said. The government initiative aims to generate up to 1-gigawatt of new solar energy to reduce the country’s dependence on gas.
Uzbekistan has for the first time ever revealed its gold sales data. The Central Asian nation has been exporting 70-80 tonnes tonnes of gold for the past three years with plans to sell 80 tonnes this year, the country’s central bank said.