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The Regions This Week
September 28, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eurasia
Azerbaijan reported a 43.4% rise in the number of its citizens crossing the border to Iran in the first eight months of this year. The collapse in the value of the Iranian rial under US sanctions pressure has made purchases in Iran more attractive for Azerbaijanis, especially for those bearing US dollars or other hard currencies.
The ADB upgraded its 2018 growth forecasts for Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia in an update to its Asian Development Outlook. The upgrades followed faster than expected growth in all three countries, contributing to an upward revision of the development bank’s forecasts for the entire Central Asia and Caucasus region by 0.1 pp to 4.1%.
Tajikistan harvested 60,000 tonnes of raw cotton
as of September 18 since the beginning of the harvesting season in August. Raising cotton production is part of the official plan to develop the country’s textile industry — Tajikistan aims to collect 400,000 tonnes of cotton by end-2018.
President Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov an- nounced a number of proposals for reorganising Turkmenistan’s agricultural sector. The initia- tives appear to be following the example of Turk- menistan’s Central Asian neighbour Kazakhstan, which has been actively attempting to diversify away from over-reliance on oil exports by focus- ing on the development of the agricultural sector, among other areas.
The Central Bank of Uzbekistan raised its refinancing rate by 2 pp to 16%. The decision is aimed at reducing inflationary pressures due to rising inflation expectations and rising exchange rate pressures on prices, the regulator noted.
Vincent Prado, a French journalist was detained while investigating the December 2011 labour protests in the Kazakh oil town of Zhanaozen. The protests in Zhanaozen ended in clashes that killed
at least a dozen people, and remain a touchy subject for the Kazakh government, which was condemned by international human rights groups for cracking down on the oil workers.
Blocks of shares in a range of Iranian companies will be made available, the Iranian Privatisation Organisation announced. President Hassan Rouhani’s administration is speeding up his predecessors’ efforts to remove state ownership of companies in a bid to drive capital by private investors into inefficient businesses.
Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan will head a new task force to examine the price of natural gas exported from Russia to Armenia. Armenia receives Russian natural gas at $150 per 1,000 cubic metres, but the price Armenian households pay to Gazprom’s local subsidiary for the gas is almost twice that amount.
The EBRD is considering a $30mn loan for Turkey’s Anadolu to develop a $88.7mn hydropower plant in Georgia, Kheledula HPP. Of relatively small size and using environmentally- friendly technology, the new Kheledula HPP project was rated by the EBRD as Class A for its moderate environmental and social impact.
Around 2,000 Russian and Kyrgyz troops launched joint counter-terrorism exercises
at the Edelweiss training ground in eastern Kyrgyzstan. At the same time, Russia is conducting military drills in Tajikistan, where Russian motorised infantry units were training at the Lyaur facility to counter terrorist attacks.
Mongolia’s trade surplus contracted by 38.5% y/y to $869.2mn in January-August, the latest figures published by its National Statistics Office show. The trade surplus shrank due to imports spiking 38.3% y/y to $3.8bn in the eight-month period thanks to ongoing economic stabilisation within Mongolia.