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The Regions This Week
July 28, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Eurasia
The Rouhani administration’s cabinet unanimous- ly agreed to rename Iran’s rial currency as the toman and to remove one zero from future issued bank notes. Iran's population routinely ignores the last zero of the rial and informally refers to it as the toman, a former official currency eliminated back in the 1910s.
The EU is to establish a fully-fledged delega- tion in Mongolia to step up political dialogue and cooperation. The European bloc and East Asian country also plan to soon conclude a new Part- nership and Cooperation Agreement.
With the words "It's time for Uzbekistan to wake up" a 24-hour TV news channel, Ozbekistan-24, was launched in Uzbekistan. It aims to cover news in Uzbek, Russian and English in an "an unbiased and balanced way".
Kazakhstan achieved GDP growth of 4.2% y/y
in H1 2017, a notable improvement over the economic expansion rates experienced over six- month periods dating back to 2015. Increased oil production and the mild economic recoveries of big trading partners such as Russia helped deliver more economic activity.
The Iranian ministry of industries, mining and trade set a national car production target of 2mn units by 2021. Production of cars, vans and HGVs stood at almost 1.3mn units in the last Ira- nian calendar year (ended March 21). The min- istry also said investments should improve the quality of output, allowing for the export of cars made in Iran.
French automaker PSA Group posted an 11% increase in H1 profits following the repatriation of profits made on Peugeot’s older 206 and 405 models, currently only made in Iran under a deal with Iran Khodro (IKCO). Iran continues to play a major role in advancing PSA sales with 207,900 vehicles sold in the country in H1, up 2.3% y/y.
A former Kazakhstani trade union leader was
sentenced to four years of “freedom limitation”
on embezzlement charges. Larisa Kharkova,
the former chair of Kazakhstan's defunct Confederation of Independent Trade Unions pleaded not guilty and said the case was politically motivated. Astana has imposed burdensome registration requirements on trade unions that
do not respect internationally protected workers’ rights to organise.
Kazakh car output grew 20.1% across H1 2017.
The gain marks the start of a recovery from a 58.8% y/y plunge recorded over January-June 2016 and a 45.8% decline across the same period of 2015.
Tajikistan has set up a commission to promote “appropriate” clothing to combat “alien” cultures. The move is aimed at discouraging Tajik citizens from following Islamic practices and wearing Islamic clothing. The commission will help design government-approved traditional Tajik clothing. Tajikistan has already issued hijab bans in government offices and schools and has rounded up men with bushy beards and forced them to shave.
KPMG Azerbaijan is to be audited by Azerbai- jan's public Auditing Chamber. Two failed banks, Bank Standard and Bank Technique, were audited by the KPMG unit between 2013 and 2016. Credi- tors filed a petition asking for an investigation as to why it did not identify financial troubles at the lenders.
French train maker Alstom preliminarily agreed a JV with an Iranian consortium to build 1,000 metro and suburban rail carriages in Iran in a deal estimated as worth €1.3bn. It is reportedly partnering with the Industrial Development and Renovation Organisation of Iran, an investment fund active across Iranian industry, and Iranian Rail Industries Development Co.