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The Regions This Week
April 27, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Eurasia
Kazakh copper miner Kaz Minerals will scrap its secondary listing in Hong Kong. Only a few shareholders have chosen to hold their stock on the Hong Kong register since the company’s secondary listing in 2011.
The Kyrgyz state-owned airline Air Kyrgyzstan halted operations after its only active aircraft,
a B737-500 EX-37501, suffered a bird strike.
Its flights were suspended last October and there have been no flights since then.
Iran’s central bank banned Iranian banks from dealing in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, over money-laundering concerns, state news agency IRNA reported. The country is in the midst of moves aimed at halting its currency crisis caused by steep devaluation of the Iranian rial partly on concerns regarding Iran’s economic future given hostility from Washington.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s billionaire former prime minister, is to return to politics at the helm of the Georgian Dream party he founded in 2012. Ivanishvili served as prime minister briefly from October 2012 to November 2013 before announcing he would quit politics.
Kazakhstan’s largest coal miner Bogatyr Komir could face risks tied to US sanctions against Rusal, sovereign wealth fund Samruk Kazyna’s subsidiary, Samruk, revealed. Bogatyr Komir is a joint venture between Russian aluminium produc- er Rusal and Kazakh state-run Samruk Energy.
Kyrgyz lawmakers approved a new prosecutor- general, Otkurbek Jamshitov, who will replace Indira Joldubayeva. Jamshitov’s appointment took place a week after President Sooranbai Jeenbekov sacked the cabinet led by Prime Minister Sapar Isakov after a vote of no confidence in parliament.
Azerbaijan’s state oil company Socar and
energy major BP signed a new production sharing agreement (PSA) on exploration and development in the Caspian Sea. BP already has a major presence in Azerbaijan, having entered the country back in 1994.
S&P Global Ratings affirmed its 'B-' long-term sovereign credit rating on Mongolia with a stable outlook. The outlook is based on the expectation that Mongolia’s government deficit is limited against the risks associated with the country's elevated current account deficit as well as against associated gross external financing needs, the agency said.
Kazakhstan’s wheat production is expected
to decline 5.4% y/y to 14mn tonnes in 2018 as farmers reduce the planted area to the second- lowest level since 2004, UkrAgroConsult reported citing data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Kazakh farmers have been shifting their focus to higher-margin crops such as oilseeds and pulses.
Iran is on track to launch a new aluminium smelter early next year that would boost the country’s output by 70%, Mehdi Karbasian, deputy minister of industry, mining and trade, said. Such a gain in aluminium production would make the Islamic Republic self-sufficient in the metal by taking advantage of rich natural gas reserves.
Consumer prices in Tajikistan rose by 2.5% y/y in March, decelerating from the 5.6% y/y growth seen in the same month of last year, according to the latest figures put out by the National Bank of Tajikistan. Inflation has been slowing since June last year when it reached 9%.