21 Jun 2024

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Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan Business & Economy

Kyrgyz-German Business Forum

On June 20, First Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic Adylbek Kasymaliev presided over a Kyrgyz-German business forum hosted by Frankfurt am Main.

Kasymaliev noted that during 32 years of bilateral cooperation, his country’s German partners have implemented several socially significant projects in Kyrgyzstan, including the establishment of an Anti-TB Clinic and a Perinatal Center in Bishkek.

Referencing the facts from 2019-2023, bilateral trade turnover had increased 5.5-fold and over 180 joint Kyrgyz-German enterprises currently operate in Kyrgyzstan, first deputy prime minister emphasized that “the potential of cooperation between the two countries has not been fully realized.”

Calling on German businesses to further their investment in projects in Kyrgyzstan, Kasymaliev stated, “The undertaken fiscal reforms have made it possible for Kyrgyzstan to instigate the most liberal tax regime in Central Asia”, to the great advantage of German companies and entrepreneurs investing in joint ventures.

 

Times of Central Asia

Times of Central Asia

Laura Hamilton MA, is the former Director of the Collins Gallery at the University of Strathclyde. She first visited Kyrgyzstan in 2011 to research and curate a major exhibition of contemporary textiles and fashion. Since 2012, she has worked as an editor on over thirty translations of Central Asian novels and collections of short stories. In more recent years, her work has focused on editing translations of Kyrgyzstan's great epics -'Ak Moor', Saiykal', Janysh Baiysh', 'Oljobai and Kishimjan', 'Dariyka', 'Semetey' and 'Er Toshtuk' for The Institute of Kyrgyz Language and Literature, and the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University.

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21 Jun 2024

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Home, Features, Kazakhstan Featurees

Suspected Attackers of Kazakhstan Blogger Aidos Sadykov Identified

Three days ago, Kazakhstan political blogger and erstwhile opposition figure, Aidos Sadykov was shot in the head at a parking lot near his residence in Kyiv whilst standing next to his wife, Natalya Sadykova.

Sadykov is the author of the Telegram channel, ‘Base’, which has 59,000 subscribers, and has been permanently residing in Kyiv since 2014.

Two suspects have already been identified. Both are Kazakhstan citizens, 33-year-old Meiram Karataev and 36-year-old Altay Zhakanbaev, whose names have been corroborated by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine’s website.

According to the Kazakhstan Ministry of Internal Affairs, M. Kartayev was dismissed from the ministry in January of 2019 and is not currently a police officer.  They further elaborated that the Head of State (of Kazakhstan) had instructed the Ministry to clarify all circumstances of the case.

Immediately following the attack, President Tokayev of Kazakhstan said that “the official bodies of the Republic of Kazakhstan are ready to join the investigation.”

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine reported that on the day of the crime the suspects crossed the border into Moldova and according to Ukrinform, the Ukrainian National News Agency, they have been placed on the international wanted list.

Over the years, Sadykov has frequently criticized the Kazakh authorities, including the current president. In 2020, Base, together with the initiative to create the opposition Democratic Party, were co-organizers of a rally in Almaty demanding a boycott of the parliamentary election. The Democratic Party of Kazakhstan, an unregistered political party, was founded and led by Zhanbolat Mamai, a former journalist who in 2017 was convicted of receiving funds from Mukhtar Ablyazov, a fugitive former minster with judgements against him in numerous jurisdictions, including the U.S. and the U.K., where he was found to have committed “fraud on an epic scale.” Natalya Sadykova previously worked for Ablyazov’s since shuttered newspaper, Respublika.

Aidos Sadykov and Mamai both actively supported protests in January 2022 in Kazakhstan, which were widely seen as an attempted coup. Sadykov is wanted in Kazakhstan under articles on the incitement of discord.

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20 Jun 2024

@gazeta.uz

Central Asia, Uzbekistan, International Affairs, Business & Economy, Uzbekistan Business & Economy, Uzbekistan International Affairs

Chinese Company to Build Automobile Plant in Uzbekistan for $1.5 bln

China Xiaou Group intends to launch a large automobile manufacturing complex in the Ferghana region of Uzbekistan, the Khokimiyat (regional authority) of the Ferghana press service has reported. The agreement on constructing a large automobile complex with China Xiaou Group for $1.5 billion, at the expense of direct Chinese investments, was signed during a visit by a delegation of officials and businessmen from the Ferghana region to China.

It is reported that in the first stage of the project, a $50 million investment is planned to set up production lines for 60,000 electric, hybrid, and special cars per year. In the second phase, $350 million will be invested, and $1.1 billion in the third phase. Most of the components will be localized, and the number of cars produced will be increased to 110,000 per year.

The project is planned to be fully completed within five years.

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Askar Alimzhanov graduated from the journalism department of the Kazakh State University named after S. Kirov, then worked as a correspondent for the daily republican newspaper Leninskaya Smen. He then moved to the United States to be a reporter for the daily newspaper "Cape Cod Times" in Hayanis, Massachusetts, (USA) under the journalist exchange program between the Union of Journalists of the USSR and the New England Society of News Editors. Since then, he has helped build transparency and understanding of Central Asia region in various executive level positions at esteemed media organizations including "Akbar"(Alma-Ata) international center for journalism, the Khabar News agency, the Television and Radio Corporation "Kazakhstan" JSC, and MIR- Kazakhstan.

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20 Jun 2024

@parlam.kz

Central Asia, Justice, Kazakhstan Local Politics, Kazakhstan Justice, Business & Economy, Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan Business & Economy

Kazakh MP Accuses Nazarbayev’s Relatives of Raiding

MP Yerlan Sairov believes that relatives of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, Rakhat Aliyev and Kairat Satybaldy are involved in a business seizure. The parliamentarian demanded that the General Prosecutor’s Office return the property to the affected businessmen, Kursiv has reported. During a meeting of the Majilis, the deputy stated that representatives of the Old Kazakhstan, taking advantage of their impunity, had initiated a series of business takeovers. “Such a system was formed by Rakhat Aliyev (Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law) and his supporters,” Sairov stated.

Now, the victims have begun demanding the return of seized property. According to him, Nurlan Bimurzin and Megdat Kaliyev lost their oil business worth 170 million tenge ($369,000) in 2003. Zharkyn Kurentayev and Sholpan Karaneeva also “fell victim to the greed of the above-mentioned persons. The same group selected several vacation spots in the town of Konaev and the Altyn Bulak sanatorium in the Turkestan region,” Sairov specified.

Referring to the victims’ posts on social networks, Sairov said that a group linked to Nazarbayev’s nephew, Kairat Satybaldy, and his former sister-in-law, Gulmira, allegedly annexed the Hilton Hotel in Almaty and German citizen Robert Schumacher’s construction company. The latter is now considered bankrupt.

“The Prosecutor General’s Office needs to take steps to protect the economic interests of the victims from representatives of the Old Kazakhstan and return the property,” added Sairov.

Rakhat Aliyev, the husband of Dariga Nazarbayeva from 1983 to 2007, was one of the most influential people in Kazakhstan in the early 2000s. In 2007, he was charged with kidnapping and preparation for a coup d’état and sentenced in absentia to 40 years; Aliyev fled to Austria, where he was arrested in 2014, and found hanged in a cell in Vienna in 2015. The official cause of death was suicide.

In late February 2024, businessmen Bimurzin and Kaliyev announced that they had applied with the Prosecutor General’s Office to reclaim assets they claimed to have transferred under duress to the former president’s daughter, Aliya Nazarbayeva, in 2003. Nazarbayeva sued them for libel and lost

Furthermore, earlier this year, businesswoman Sholpan Karaneeva reported that the Hilton Hotel was taken by Kairat Satybaldy and his supporters in 2021. After the nephew of the former president was behind bars, the transfer of his assets to the state, among them the hotel, was initiated.

Kairat Satybaldy and his former wife, Gulmira Satybaldy, have been sentenced under articles on laundering money and the embezzlement of others property.

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Askar Alimzhanov graduated from the journalism department of the Kazakh State University named after S. Kirov, then worked as a correspondent for the daily republican newspaper Leninskaya Smen. He then moved to the United States to be a reporter for the daily newspaper "Cape Cod Times" in Hayanis, Massachusetts, (USA) under the journalist exchange program between the Union of Journalists of the USSR and the New England Society of News Editors. Since then, he has helped build transparency and understanding of Central Asia region in various executive level positions at esteemed media organizations including "Akbar"(Alma-Ata) international center for journalism, the Khabar News agency, the Television and Radio Corporation "Kazakhstan" JSC, and MIR- Kazakhstan.

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20 Jun 2024

@asiaplus

Central Asia, Environment, Tajikistan Local Politics, Tajikistan, Local Politics

Threat of Cholera Prompts Tajikistan to Test Its Water

Due to reported cholera cases in Afghanistan, Tajikistan’s health ministry has taken strict control of water quality in the border areas of the Panj River and some districts of the Khatlon region.

The deputy head of Tajikistan’s sanitary surveillance service, Navruz Jafarov, said that a large-scale inspection of open water sources in the border areas of Khatlon region has been underway since June 3rd. Specialists are taking water samples and conducting tests to prevent the possible spread of infection.

The main reason for the inspections is the cholera outbreak in Afghanistan, which reached dangerous levels last year.

“The disease has spread to the districts of Balkh, Kunduz, Tahor, and Badakhshon, as well as areas bordering Tajikistan. In this regard, the water in the Panj River in the border areas is under strict control of specialists of the Republican Center for Quarantine Disease Control of the Ministry of Health,” Jafarov said.

He said five rivers in Tajikistan cross the border with Afghanistan. The disease may come to Tajikistan if floods or sewage from Afghan villages enter the rivers.

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Times of Central Asia

Askar Alimzhanov graduated from the journalism department of the Kazakh State University named after S. Kirov, then worked as a correspondent for the daily republican newspaper Leninskaya Smen. He then moved to the United States to be a reporter for the daily newspaper "Cape Cod Times" in Hayanis, Massachusetts, (USA) under the journalist exchange program between the Union of Journalists of the USSR and the New England Society of News Editors. Since then, he has helped build transparency and understanding of Central Asia region in various executive level positions at esteemed media organizations including "Akbar"(Alma-Ata) international center for journalism, the Khabar News agency, the Television and Radio Corporation "Kazakhstan" JSC, and MIR- Kazakhstan.

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20 Jun 2024

@Inbusiness.kz

Central Asia, Environment, Uzbekistan Environment, Uzbekistan, International Affairs, Local Politics, Uzbekistan International Affairs, Uzbekistan Local Politics

Central Asian Countries Gather to Share Air Pollution Solutions

On June 19th a political and regional forum was organized in Tashkent under the slogan “Building a Clean Air Future in Central Asia”. The forum was organized in partnership with the Uzbek Ministry of Ecology, the World Bank, and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Participants included senior officials from the governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

The forum was created to allow the countries of Central Asia to exchange knowledge on how to prevent air pollution. Air quality in both urban and rural areas is affected by transboundary pollution, caused by emissions from burning fossil fuels in industry, the heating sector, and transport. Another source of pollution in cities is sand and dust storms.

Most air quality-related illnesses and premature deaths in Central Asia are attributable to delicate particulate matter 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM2.5). Their concentration in large cities is often several times higher than the permissible air quality parameters recommended by the World Health Organization. This is especially noticeable during winter, when the heating sector uses coal and gas for power. According to the IQAir portal, which monitors global air quality, Central Asian cities are often among the most polluted cities in the world.

The participants at “Building a Clean Air Future in Central Asia” studied each other’s measures and practices in air quality management. They then defined some priority directions for accelerating regional cooperation on these issues.

Valerie Hickey, the World Bank’s global director for environment, natural resources and the blue economy, commented: “Air quality management is a complex challenge that requires understanding where the pollution comes from and prioritizing actions in those sectors. This will take better data and stronger regulations harmonized across borders, credible institutions, and clean infrastructure. Working together, the countries can clean the air across Central Asia.”

Sylvie Motar, deputy director of the European office of the UNEP, added: “Air pollution knows no borders, so cooperation between Central Asian countries in this area is essential. This dialogue will help increase investments in clean air to protect the health of the people of Central Asia.”

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Times of Central Asia

Askar Alimzhanov graduated from the journalism department of the Kazakh State University named after S. Kirov, then worked as a correspondent for the daily republican newspaper Leninskaya Smen. He then moved to the United States to be a reporter for the daily newspaper "Cape Cod Times" in Hayanis, Massachusetts, (USA) under the journalist exchange program between the Union of Journalists of the USSR and the New England Society of News Editors. Since then, he has helped build transparency and understanding of Central Asia region in various executive level positions at esteemed media organizations including "Akbar"(Alma-Ata) international center for journalism, the Khabar News agency, the Television and Radio Corporation "Kazakhstan" JSC, and MIR- Kazakhstan.

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