Welcome to the Caspian Daily, where you will find the 10 most important things you need to know on Caspian Sea Region. We appreciate ideas, reports, news and interesting articles. Send along to Caspian[at]moderndiplomacy.eu or on Twitter: @DGiannakopoulos
1Azerbaijan is the most stable country in the South Caucasus in terms of stability in domestic and foreign policy, economic power and the ability to resist extremism, says a report published by Minchenko Consulting. The report mentions that the collapse of the USSR gave birth to six armed conflicts, the majority of which still remain unsettled. “The South Caucasus is the only region in the post-Soviet area where some of the states do not have diplomatic relations. There are no diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Georgia and Russia, Armenia and Turkey,” says the report.Azerbaijan is mentioned as the most stable country among the three South Caucasian countries in terms of stability in domestic and foreign policy, economic power and the ability to resist extremism. Azerbaijan comes first thanks to its monolithic political system and strong economy.
2Russia’s Defense Ministry broadcasting channel, Zvezda-TV, reports that Moscow has plans to start building new early warning radar stations in Azerbijan and near the Arctic Circle. The radar stations are meant to provide long-distance monitoring of airspace. Construction of the Voronezh-DM radar will start at Azerbaijan’s Soviet-era Qabala military complex in 2017 and is scheduled to be completed during 2019. The new radar will replace old Soviet radar system Daryal, which Russia stopped using in December 2012 due to differences with Baku over the Qabala lease fee.
3Some 234 trains have been launched via the China-Europe-China railway route through Kazakhstan for the first seven months of 2015, which is almost three times more than in the same period of last year, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (Railway of Kazakhstan) said.”As of 2015, the number of organized container trains is expected to increase up to 510 or more than 40,000 containers, which is almost 40 times more than in 2011,” a statement said.”Kazakhstan Temir Zholy is actively working to implement the transit-transport potential of the country in three main vectors: East-West (China-Europe-China), TRACECA (China, Turkey, the Caucasus); North-South (China, Russia, India, Gulf countries),” a statement said. “Great success in this area was observed in transcontinental transportation via the China-Europe-China route.” The container transportation via this route increased, mainly due to redirecting the cargo flow from marine transport to railway transport.
4Kazakhstan Power Market Outlook To 2025. This report elaborates Kazakhstans power market structure and provides historical and forecast numbers for generation, capacity and consumption up to 2025. Detailed analysis of the Kazakhstan power markets regulatory structure, import and export trends, competitive landscape and power projects at various stages of the supply chain is provided. The report also gives a snapshot of the power sector in Kazakhstan on broad parameters of macroeconomics, supply security, generation infrastructure, transmission infrastructure, degree of competition, regulatory scenario and future potential. Financial performance of the leading power companies is also analyzed in the report. [Market Research Reports]
5Turkmenistan has seen a 7.8-percent GDP growth in oil and gas condensate production in the January-July 2015 period. This data was announced at a meeting of the Turkmen Cabinet of Ministers, which summarized the results from various sectors of the national economy for the first seven months of the current year. It was also noted that the country’s GDP growth was at the level of 8.7 percent, including an industrial sector growth rate of about 4.4 percent, 12.6 percent in the construction sector, 13 percent in trade, and 12.2 percent in agricultural production. The volume of investments from all financing resources amounted to 27.7 billion manat, representing a 7.9 percent growth from that of the same period in 2014.
6How Much Pressure Will Iran Put On Oil Prices? “According to Robin Mills, Head of Consulting at Manaar Energy, the anticipation of the Iranian deal has already caused prices to fall and further falls will depend on the pace of the increase in Iranian exports.“Iranian exports will increase somewhat ahead of the formal confirmation of lifting sanctions, about 6 months after the approval of the deal by the U.S. and Iran (which itself takes 3 months from signing), but the return of ~1 million bpd of Iranian exports will depress prices by $5-10 per barrel. In the long term, growing production from Iran will help keep prices moderate,” stated Mills to Oilprice” source: investing.com
7Central Asian Cities: Between Demography and Politics. “We live in a rapidly urbanizing world, where city populations are growing in across the globe at an impressive rate. In 1950, 28.8 percent of the world’s population lived in cities, in 1975 – this figure was 37.2 percent and in 2000 – 45.0 percent, while more recently, in 2009, it exceeded 50 percent. This trend is also apparent in the post-Soviet space, chiefly in Central Asia. In 1959, city-dwellers accounted for 38.5 percent of the population, whereas in 2014 this figure had risen to 47.6 percent, with the population increasing from 8.9 to 32.1 million. According to UN forecasts, by 2050 the region is to become home to 82 million people, with 45 million or 55 percent residing in cities. The fastest increase takes place in major cities, which are gradually becoming into megalopolises, and this gives rise to a range of political challenges for Central Asian states” Artem Dankov for RIAC.
8Kazakhstan’s Mining Fiscal Regime. Kazakhstan has significant fossil fuel reserves, and mineral and metal deposits. It produces a variety of mineral resources such as coal, uranium, lead, zinc, tungsten, molybdenum, borates, phosphorite, copper, potassium and cadmium. The fiscal regime report covers mining industry of Kazakhstan which is governed by the Ministry of Industry and New Technology and Ministry of Environmental Protection. The Law of Subsoil and Subsoil Use is the main regulating law for mining activities in the country. The report outlines governing bodies, governing laws, licenses, rights, obligations and key fiscal terms which includes upfront payments and taxes on subsurface usage, land tax, vehicle tax, deductions, depreciation, loss carry forward, withholding taxes and value added tax (VAT) [Research and Markets]
9Three-day consultations of heads of customs services of the participating countries of international transport project North-South, including Azerbaijan, will start in Delhi tomorrow. Indian ambassador to Russia Pundi Srinivasan Raghavan has informed today that the parties are actively working on launching this project as it will halve the costs on the delivery of goods. Transport corridor from Nava Sheva (Mumbai, India) through Bandar Abbas (Iran) to Astrakhan (Russia) and Baku (Azerbaijan) is expected to reduce much the time of transporting cargo from India to the regions of Central Asia and Russia. Currently, an important issue in the running of transport corridor North-South is the completion of railway line Qazvin-Rasht-Astara with length of 375 km.
10Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey agreed to create a common Turkic-speaking channel.Memo was signed during the first meeting of the ministers in the sphere of information and media council of cooperation in Astana. The channel will broadcast in the language of the member-states which signed a memo on its creation.
