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The Regions This Week
April 28, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eurasia
US AID plans to cut its aid to Kazakhstan, Turk- menistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia by up to 100% in 2018 under the Trump “America First” plan. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan might respectively see 60% and 47.6% cuts. Uzbekistan might see a 4.4% increase in aid from the agen- cy. Critics say the cuts might allow Russia and China to strengthen their grip on various coun- tries across Central Asia and the Caucasus.
IranAir has given up on plans to take early delivery of a Boeing 777-300 jetliner because it is no longer available. A plane no longer wanted by Turkish Airlines was previously said to be
on offer. Boeing said it would not comment on specific deliveries and that it continued “to follow the lead of the US government on all our deal- ings with approved Iranian airlines.” Relations between Washington and Tehran remain volatile.
Black front pages and TV channels that went dark featured as Mongolian media protested against a bill they fear will bring censorship. The bill has been proposed two months before the presidential election. The legislation would al- low police to bypass the courts and impose fines running up to approximately $40,000 for spread- ing defamatory information.
Digital payments using NFC technologies are to come online in Iran from mid-May. Despite be- ing disconnected from the global banking system because of sanctions, Iran, assisted by Chinese technology firms, has developed its own financial technology industries on a par with peer indus- tries abroad.
Iranian self-made billionaire and business heav- yweight Asadollah Asgaroladi said Moscow’s newly introduced visa waiver programme for the Far East Vladivostok region is “useless”, as no Iranian trade is conducted in the region. Asgaroladi chairs Iran’s Russia and China joint chambers of commerce.
Iran’s Rouhani administration is pushing a bill to cut VAT imposed on gold merchants from 9% to 3%. The president, in re-election campaign mode, is looking to defuse tensions first generated by the previous Ahmadinejad administration when it intro- duced the VAT charge in what was seen as a ham- handed manner. After the introduction of the levy, many independent traders and goldsmiths shut down their stores in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar.
Georgia and Iran are mulling a railway connec- tion, Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced. The connection would form part of a larger scheme to unite the Persian Gulf with the Black Sea, which would open new markets for Iranian oil exports. The two sides also signed a deal for Iranian gas sales to Georgia and exchanges of electricity.
Kazakhstan’s largest mobile operator Kcell, controlled by Sweden’s Telia, saw its net in- come fall by 42.7% to KZT3.799bn (€11.1mn) in the first quarter. The economic slowdown and the tenge’s 2015-2016 sharp depreciation have hit Kazakhstan’s telecom companies. They use foreign currency to import equipment, but their earnings are in the local currency.
Kazakhstan’s second largest lender Halyk Bank might inject at least KZT230bn ($738mn) into largest lender Kazkommertsbank (KKB). It would be part of the deal to buy a controlling stake in KKB for less than $1 following a state bailout. The government sees the takeover as the best way to solve KKB’s problems with bad loans, largely stem- ming from its 2015 takeover of failed bank BTA.
Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom (KTP) said the bankruptcy of Toshiba’s US unit Westinghouse Electric will not negatively impact its finances. Global uranium production leader KTP is a minority shareholder in Westinghouse Electric. KTP holds a put option allowing it to sell its 10% Westinghouse stake back to Toshiba at the original purchase price. It paid $540mn for its stake in 2007.