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The Regions This Week
May 19, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Eurasia
Tehran and Washington were involved in a tit- for-tat sanctions confrontation on the eve of the Iranian presidential election on May 19. Although the Trump administration extended Obama-era waivers on sanctions related to the nuclear deal, it introduced new sanctions partly in response to Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its role in the Syrian conflict. Calling the sanctions illegal, Iran retaliated by sanctioning seven entities and two individuals related to the US.
France’s Citroen took over a plant of Iran’s sec- ond biggest carmaker SAIPA Group in prepara- tion for assembling what will be the first Citroen car to hit the Iranian market in 39 years. It is expected that the vehicle will be a C4. SAIPA was actually created by Citroen in 1966 to produce the Citroen 2CV in Iran.
Iran’s bank card system is to be connected to Russia's Mir card payment system from Sep- tember. The move would make Russia the first country to accept Iranian bank cards since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which saw US-based card companies including Visa and MasterCard driven out of Iran. Iranian cards work under
the Shetab electronic banking clearance and au- tomated payments system.
An additional 18 foreign airlines have started flying to Iran in the past two years, taking the total to 48. So many new routes have opened up that Iran’s poor airport infrastructure is being stretched beyond capacity, civil aviation officials said.
IranAir took delivery of four ATR 27-600 turbo- prop short-haul airliners as part of a deal worth up to €540m that will see 20 more gradually ar- rive from the French-Italian small plane manufac- turer and Airbus subsidiary.
Iran, Armenia, Russia and Georgia are to create a joint chamber of commerce. It will be head- quartered in Yerevan.
Kazakhstan’s bilateral trade with Russia, Bela- rus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia – fellow Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) members – grew 40.5% y/y to $3.74bn in the first quarter. Exports rose 39.2% y/y to $1.18bn, while imports were up 41.1% y/y to $2.56bn. That marks a recovery from the 16.8% de- cline in trade with EEU countries seen in 2016.
Kazakhstan’s first-quarter foreign trade sur- plus widened to $4.8bn from $3.1bn a year ago. Imports rose to $6bn from $5.2bn and exports grew to $10.8bn from $8.3bn. Much of the growth stemmed from regional economic improvements experienced by Kazakhstan’s main trading part- ners, including Russia, and better oil prices.
A Kazakh court sentenced Oil Construction Com- pany (OCC) union leader Amin Eleusinov to two years in prison for embezzlement and publicly insulting, assaulting and refusing to obey a state representative. Eleusinov was arrested when hun- dreds of OCC workers went on hunger strike to protest against the closure of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan (CITUK).
Ferrochrome producer Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), formerly ENRC, started mining a new chrome deposit with mineable reserves of more than 3mn tonnes in Kazakhstan. The deposit is part of ERG’s mine in Khromtau and is expected to produce 300,000 tonnes a year of ore.
The Russian, US and French ambassadors that chair the Minsk Group called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to de-escalate recent clashes in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The peace mediating body under the OSCE intervened after an Azerbai- jani missile destroyed an Armenian anti-missile system. Armenia retaliated with mortar fire.
Azerbaijan's economy contracted 1.2% y/y to AZN20.14bn (€10.76bn) in January-April on the back of reduced oil and gas output partly prompt- ed by agreed Opec cuts. The economy slid into recession in 2016, posting a 3.8% contraction.