Page 73 - bneMag February 2021_20210202

bne February 2021
Opinion 73
recognized international democratic principles,” he said. He spoke of developing “systemic knowledge of electoral legislation and international standards” among electoral commission members.
He even made reference to the recommendations of international observers from the last elections, though
he made a point of stating it would be their “acceptable” recommendations, which would be implemented. Most of the observers stopped well short of describing past voting as free and fair.
Mirziyoyev appears to feel the time has not yet come for full- fledged competition in political life. Elsewhere in the Former Soviet Union (FSU), politics has been taken captive by corrupt insiders and the rich elites.
Address highlights corruption
Indeed, the president dropped hints about the moves he feels should be taken first. The address highlighted several, including corruption.
“It is no secret that due to the lack of proper organisation
of work in the field, some managers lack competence and qualifications, there is bureaucracy, corruption, indifference and negligence,” he said at one point.
“It is essential to prevent corruption and ensure transparency in decision-making processes in all public bodies,” he said
at another.
He stressed the need for media freedom. “Fair criticism of objective journalists and bloggers points to the mistakes and shortcomings of the old-fashioned leaders, forcing them to change their style of work and increase their responsibility,” he said. “From now on, every public body must engage in constant dialogue and cooperation with the media in its day-to-day activities.”
This appears to be an indirect response to recent grumblings within the government regarding blog posts complaining about seasonal power and natural gas shortages. He singled out the government’s Information and Mass Communications Agency, formed on his watch to “broadly support and protect the media” and promote greater transparency. “In order to bring to a new level the reform in the information sphere, to ensure its further development, full support for independent media activities, I think it is necessary to critically review the activities of the agency,” he said.
“From now on, every public body must engage in constant dialogue and cooperation with the media in its day-to-day activities”
In other words, Mirziyoyev appears to be very aware of the risks of ignoring political reform – that elephant stomping about in the background. But he has placed economic and administrative reforms at the top of his agenda. The elephant comes later. In one of his three references to political change, he gave this ringing endorsement of the process he has in mind:
“No matter how difficult it may be, we will not deviate from the path of democratic reforms.”
Fred Harrison, with the London consultancy Belgrave Europe, is a former international journalist who has spent the last 20 years advising emerging market governments on reforms, FDI and their international image. He has been successfully working in Uzbekistan since 2018.
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Contents
Top stories
Russia’s top retail and tech companies
March 2020
www.intellinews.com
@bneintellinews
join forces to hunt for innovations in rest of the world
Ukraine-born startups raised more than half a billion dollars in 2019 Russian video streaming platforms gain speed
Cloud services take off in Russia SEMrush to SEO success
Leaders
Russia’s internet giant Yandex announces growing and more diversified revenues in 2019 Russian telecom major Rostelecom misses on earnings in 4Q19, cash flow solid
Investment
the
2
4
5 6 8
9
10 12
13
Russia’s top retail and tech companies
join forces to hunt for innovations in
the rest of the world
BAs Russia’s retail and tech sectors consolidate, the leading companies are turned their gaze outwards to hunt for
World Bank approves $35mn project
to modernise Kyrgyz tax administration and statistical system 13 Romanian online home decoration
retailer raises €3.5mn in bonds 14 Russian billionaires Abramovich, Gutseriev, said to invest in Telegram
crypto project TON 14 Russian fund Da Vinci Capital gets
€30mn from Germany’s DEG to invest
in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan 15
Fintech & E-commerce 16
Russian e-commerce major
Wildberries to add self-employed
vendor products to offering 16 Russian Dixy retailer to launch online sales with Ozon 17 Valuation of Sistema’s e-commerce
asset Ozon boosted to $1.8bn 17
Telecom 19
Makedonski Telekom’s net profit
up 6% y/y in 2019 19 Romanian telco Digi grows by double
digit rates in 2019 19 Russia could postpone 5G rollout
from 2022 to 2024 20
NIBs 21
bne:Tech
new technology and innovation.
See page 2
Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019
In 2019, the venture capital and private equity funding volume for Ukrainian and Ukrainian-founded tech startups reached $544mn (up from $323mn in 2018 and $265mn in 2017), says AVentures Capital’s latest industry report ”DealBook of Ukraine”,
reports Adrien Henni of Ukraine Digital News. See page 4
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