Page 8 - bne_newspaper_August_4_2017

The Regions This Week
August 4, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 8
Eurasia
The late autocrat Islam Karimov’s daughter Gulnara Karimova is under long-term arrest
as she is too dangerous for the Uzbek estab- lishment, her son, also named Islam Karimov, said in a BBC interview. "They're so scared of my mother, not only her voice, her opinion, [but also] the information she has," he said, adding she has smuggled revelatory computer files out of the country. The Uzbek prosecutor’s office claims Ka- rimova and her associates stole $2bn from bribing telecoms firms.
Georgian breakaway region Abkhazia risks los- ing the flows of Russian tourism that support
its economy with three Russian tourists killed and dozens of others injured in recent incidents. In July an armed gang kidnapped two Russian families, killing one person. On August 2 an explo- sion at an arms depot left two bicycling tourists dead and 64 wounded. Vladimir Putin is reportedly set to visit Abkhazia.
Iran’s average inflation rate for both urban and rural areas in the fourth Persian calendar month (running from June 22) stood at 10.3%, 1pp up from the previous month. The central bank says this year should see a levelling out of inflationary pressures. Under the second Ahmadinejad ad- ministration, which ended in 2013, inflation offi- cially climbed as high as 31.5%.
Iranian and Italian officials discussed the trans- fer of water retention technologies. Both Iran and Italy suffer from droughts and the Tehran city government is looking for water replenishment expertise as it attempts to construct a huge sew- age system for the capital's 14mn inhabitants.
France's Bureau Veritas got the green light to inspect the quality of cars, agricultural machin- ery and mining trucks produced in Iran. Iran's industries are seeking stamps of international approval to boost their image in the post-nuclear sanctions era.
Iran’s Supreme Supervisory Board of Oil Re- sources okayed the multi-billion euro deal between Tehran and investors including French energy company Total to develop Phase 11 of the South Pars gas field. Some MPs are against it, claiming it is akin to European imperialism. Total is the first Western energy major to return to Iran since sanctions were in 2016 curbed by the nu- clear deal.
The Industrial Development and Renovation Organisation of Iran (IDRO) and Russia's CJSC Transmasholding signed a €2.5bn deal to jointly manufacture passenger and cargo rail wagons. A JV will build the wagons, with the Russian party taking an 80% stake.
The Kazakh central bank blamed the tenge’s weakness in the past month on speculation and the Russian ruble’s depreciation. The Kazakh tenge has closely tracked the ruble following a switch to a floating exchange rate in 2015. The central bank "reserves the right to intervene in the event of sharp and destabilising exchange rate movements", but remains committed to the float- ing rate regime.
Moody's changed its outlook to stable from negative on the ratings of eight Kazakh gov- ernment-related issuers (GRIs), namely Kaz- MunayGas, KazTransOil, KazTransGas, Intergas Central Asia, Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, Kazakhstan Engineering and Kaztemir- trans. It cited “significant progress made by the government... toward adjusting the economy, public finances and banking system to the reality of low oil prices”.
Annual consumer price inflation in Kazakhstan slowed to 7.1% in July from July 2016’s 17.7%. In line with anticipated lower inflation, the Kazakh central bank has cut its key rate by a cumulative 600 basis points since starting an easing cycle in May 2016.