Page 11 - bne_newspaper_December_14_2018

The Regions This Week
December 14, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 11
Eurasia
Kazakhstan's government intends to lay off 10%
of the country’s police force, with a focus on the upper management, to cut costs and raise the salaries of lower ranking policemen. The Kazakh police force is notoriously corrupt, and one rea- son for that is the low salaries provided to law enforcement personnel.
Russia's largest oil company, state-controlled Rosneft, will drop plans to work in Iran, despite previously investing $30bn and extracting 55mn tonnes of oil with National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Vedomosti daily reported citing unnamed sources close to
the company.
There have been difficulties launching the first phase of Uzbekistan’s planned €100mn Amirsoy Mountain Resort, local media reported. One ma- jor problem is that the only existing road leading to the resort ‘turns to slush’ when it rains — the government commissioned a new road, but only one-third of that has been constructed.
Bank of Georgia Group’s CEO Kaha Kiknavelidze will step down after two years in the role, the London-listed lender has announced. His replace- ment is expected to be named in the first quarter of 2019, Reuters said.
Police in the Czech Republic detained Armenia's former president Serzh Sargsyan's nephew Narek Sargsyan based on an Armenian interna- tional arrest warrant. Yerevan issued an interna- tional warrant for Sargsyan's arrest back in July this year due to charges of murder, drug dealing and illegal possession of weapons and explosives.
British investigators froze a bank account linked to a multi-billion dollar Azerbaijani money-laun- dering scheme known as the “Azerbaijani Laun- dromat” that a network of investigative reporters
alleged rinsed dirty money mainly through four, UK-registered shell companies, Reuters reported.
Georgia’s leading bank, TBC Bank, acquired 100% of swoop.ge. The bank is reportedly to de- velop an e-commerce platform named Vendoo.
The Kyrgyz authorities arrested former deputy prime minister Duishenbek Zilaliyev on charges of "illegal enrichment" and placed him in pretrial detention over the weekend, the State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said. UKMK claims that investigators found almost $900,000 in un- declared cash and property in Zilaliyev's posses- sion — the former official was allegedly unable to explain how he obtained the assets.
Uzbekistan and Ukraine ended a month-long mini trade war. Uzbekistan's Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov gave assurances that there are no longer restrictions on flows of goods between the markets of Ukraine and Uzbekistan. All problems that hindered such trade have been addressed and solved, he said, according to Uzbek media reports.
Kazakhstan officially launched the Burnoye Power Plant in Zhambyl Region and a windmill farm in Mangystau Region. The Kazakh energy ministry announced plans earlier this year to raise the share of renewable energy sources in the country’s total electricity output to 3% by 2020 from the current 1%.
The Iran Privatisation Organisation announced the block sale of 68.09% of Bistoon Petrochemical Company. The latest batch of government-owned shares to be released to the market comes with the Rouhani administration is under growing pressure to allow more assets on to the market at a faster rate so that capital can move from the roiled cur- rency markets and back into the local economy.