Power line “Surkhan – Puli-Khumri” can become part of the project CASA-1000; French development agency will support the budget of Uzbekistan; Sturgeon Central Asia Balanced Fund became the owner of a 72% stake in Alliance Leasing; Alisher Sultanov discusses cooperation with a representative of Baker Hughes; A large-scale construction program for standard hotels is about to start; Universal Success Enterprises to build a “smart city” in Tashkent region; Residents of Uzbekistan bought online foreign currency worth about $ 400 million.
Power line “Surkhan – Puli-Khumri” can become part of the project CASA-1000
The construction of the Surkhan-Puli-Khumri transmission line will increase the supply of electricity from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan by 70% – up to 6 billion kWh per year. The power transmission lines will connect Kabul to the unified energy system of Central Asia. Moreover, this line may become a component part of the CASA-1000 project, “said Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov, speaking at the International Conference on Afghanistan in Geneva.
The total cost of the project is $150 million, where $118 million is invested by the Afghan side, and $32 million from the Uzbek side. Uzbekistan plans to complete construction of the Uzbek section of the new Surkhan – Puli-Khumri transmission line in December 2019.
French development agency will support the budget of Uzbekistan
The French Development Agency (FDA) will provide $150 million to support the expenses of Uzbekistan’s budget, follows from the draft decree of the President of the Republic Shavkat Mirziyoyev on measures for the effective use of the loan published on the portal of the impact assessment system of legislation for public comment.
The maturity of the loan is 20 years, including a six-year grace period. The FDA loan is granted to Uzbekistan to finance state budget expenditures.
Discussion of the document will last until December 13, 2018.
Sturgeon Central Asia Balanced Fund became the owner of a 72% stake in Alliance Leasing
The deal was closed on November 27 at the stock exchange trading. Hedge Fund became the owner of 26.6 million shares. CorpInfo valued the deal at 8.01 billion soums, with the price of one share at 300 soums. The seller is not disclosed.
Earlier, the same fund bought shares of the Universal Sug‘urta insurance company for 8 billion soums, becoming the owner of 820 billion shares, representing 39.6% of the total.
According to the stock exchange, the fund is registered in Bermuda and is managed by Sturgeon Capital, registered in London.
Alisher Sultanov discusses cooperation with a representative of Baker Hughes
The agenda included issues of further development of mutually beneficial cooperation, in particular the joint implementation of the gas transmission system modernization program (GTS Program). It was noted that negotiations are ongoing with the ADB and the EBRD on its financing.
In addition, the most urgent today is the creation in Uzbekistan of a joint service center for the repair and maintenance of gas turbine and compressor equipment. In this case, Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE), is considered not only as a service provider, but also as a full partner. Another area of cooperation is the participation of BHGE in projects for development of hydrocarbons and the intensification of production in hard-to-recover fields. The foreign side expressed its readiness to provide oilfield services.
Baker Hughes is the third largest oil and gas service company in the world after Schlumberger and Halliburton. The list of the company’s services includes drilling, reserves assessment, field development, etc. The company operates in more than 90 countries around the world.
A large-scale construction program for standard hotels is about to start
The Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers “On additional measures to accelerate the development of the hotel business in the Republic of Uzbekistan” was published. The resolution approves the proposal for the construction of small hotels and hostels for standard projects with a capacity of 8–50 rooms, developed taking into account foreign experience, primarily, Turkey and South Korea.
They are going to be built by investors-entrepreneurs. Every month at least five of the most attractive land plots for construction will be put up for an online auction.
The costs associated with the supply of engineering and communication networks are financed from local budgets, while the connection of hotels to external networks is at the expense of investors’ own funds.
Universal Success Enterprises to build a “smart city” in Tashkent region
Singapore’s Universal Success Enterprises plans to implement a project to build a “smart city” in Tashkent region in 2019-2021. The company, together with the State Investment Committee of Uzbekistan, signed a memorandum providing for the construction of a “smart city”.
The Singapore company intends to attract foreign direct investments amounting $2.5 billion for the implementation of this project.
Universal Success Enterprises has an extensive experience in construction of smart and industrial cities. In particular, the company implemented projects to build the town of Kolkata West International City on the territory of 152 hectares and the Dholera Special Investment Region on the territory of 400 hectares in India.
Residents of Uzbekistan bought online foreign currency worth about $ 400 million
As of November 1, individuals sold $2.2 billion of foreign currency to banks. This was reported at a briefing organized by the Central Bank. At the same time, they bought currency worth $800 million, of which almost 50% came from the purchase through banks’ mobile applications — this opportunity appeared in March.
Representatives of the regulator noted that overall individuals sell three times more currency than they buy. The Central Bank consider it to be a good result.
Legal entities bought currency amounting $ 8.6 billion dollars and sold $5.6 billion.