Page 9 - bne IntelliNews newspaper 14 July 2017

The Regions This Week
July 14, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Eurasia
Only Kazakh citizens with at least five years of experience in government posts can register
as presidential candidates according to a new law signed by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in a bid to prevent “ordinary” people running for president. The constitution requires that presidential candidates must be Kazakhstan- born, at least 40-years-old, have resided in Kazakhstan for at least 15 years and speak fluent Kazakh. The measure likely seeks to further consolidate power for Kazakhstan’s ruling elites who have family ties to those in power.
Iran's parliament is to create a special commission to oversee the oversee the South Pars Phase 11 between the National Oil Company of Iran (NIOC) and France's Total, following a heated debate in the main chamber. In the debate, Iran’s Minister for Petroleum, Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, angrily defended the deal with Total against those against having foreign companies develop Iran’s natural resources.
Iran is seeking wider cooperation with Turkish energy companies especially in upstream and downstream projects. Negotiations for European gas transfer are already taking place between Ankara and Tehran and discussions with several unnamed Turkish companies have begun. Iran is already one of Turkey’s largest suppliers of oil and gas supplying 16.6% of its total gas imports.
Irans’s bad credit institutions are being forced to merge by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). The indebted credit institutions include Caspian Credit Institution as well as six other smaller firms which all failed to meet the basic banking requirements set out earlier this year by the CBI. Caspian was formed through the merger of several credit institutions and cooperatives including Ferdowsi and Badr Toos, Tose’eh, Noor, Asgarieh and Kowsar. For the first time, the process is being considered by the Supreme
National Security Council (SNSC), the national body in charge of security matters.
Iran agricultural ministry is to invest IRR15tn ($396mn) in agricultural mechanisation projects through loans to Iran’s farms. Iran produces a wide range of crops, from wheat and rice to nuts, but most of the harvesting is done by hand, which is costly for farmers and wastes a huge amount
of food and water. The volume of agricultural waste in Iran is double the global average at around 35mn tonnes of food waste. Poor storage and distribution and inadequate maintenance on farms is blamed.
The European Bank of Reconstruction and De- velopment (EBRD) has approved a new strategy for investing in Kazakhstan. It will prioritise bal- ancing the roles of the public and private sec- tors, broaden access to finance and strengthen the banking sector and also develop local capital markets, inter-regional connectivity and interna- tional integration and the green economy transi- tion. The strategy will be implemented over the next four years. Kazakhstan is one of the EBRD’s largest markets, with total investment to date by the bank exceeding $8bn. The bank has recently earmarked €200mn for Kazakhstan’s renewable energy sector.
The number of Kazakh property deals rocketed by 7.8% m/m to 21,668 in June. In annual terms, property deals jumped by 27.3% y/y in the Janu- ary-June period and amounted to 111,848. The increase suggests the property market is continu- ing to recover following the economic slowdown and sharp depreciation of the national currency that led to a collapse in property prices. How- ever, house prices are still falling due to a lack of mortgage activity by commercial banks. Also, the government has been heavily investing in building affordable housing, which sets a benchmark for market prices.