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July 19, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 12
Uzbekistan to float up to 49% of state-run
oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz by 2024
Uzbekistan is planning to privatise state-run oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz (UNG) by 2024, the Uzbek energy ministry said in a press release on July 12.
The move, explained as part of a strategy to raise the company’s gas output, would mark the first flotation of a large state-owned firm in the Central Asian na- tion. UNG will prioritise raising “the annual produc- tion of hydrocarbons, including natural gas to 42.3 billion cubic metres and LNG to 1.5 million tonnes by 2024 by encouraging cooperation with large multi- national oil and gas companies,'' the ministry said, citing a presidential decree. Uzbekistan produces ap- proximately 60bn cubic metres of gas in total. Some of that is exported via pipelines to China and Russia.
“Notably, measures are to be taken to attract investment in Uzbekneftegaz JSC (UNG) by primary and secondary public placement of up to 49% of shares not later than 2024 and to do so will mean that, starting with the results for 2019, UNG is to ensure compliance of financial statements
to international financial reporting standards and will conduct independent external audits with the involvement of international auditing companies,” it said in the press release.
The ministry provided no potential valuation or data on the company’s current level of output - UNG itself has not disclosed such details either.
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Under pressure from Erdogan for rate cuts Turkey’s new central bank chief talks of retaining “reasonable real return” for investors
Turkey’s new central bank governor said in
his first interview since his appointment last week that “a reasonable rate of real return” for investors would be retained in monetary policy.
Murat Uysal, made governor after his predeces- sor Murat Cetinkaya was fired by presidential decree last week after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan complained about prolonged high interest rates, and facing scepticism from markets that the central bank can now
maintain any meaningful independence in its rate-setting, told state-run Anadolu news agency
on July 15 that there was “room for manoeuvre in monetary policy”.
“The design of monetary-policy processes in
the new period will be based on a data-focused approach that takes into account all macroeco- nomic indicators, primarily inflation and economic activity,’’ Uysal added. It would be essential to stick to a cautious policy “but the level of tight- ness here can best be described through real rates rather than nominal rates”, he also said.
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