In this issue:
Public Committee to Supervise Elections
Almaty Conference Adopts Access Plan for Landlocked Countries; Calls Made to Revive Silk Road
Banks Take Greater Role in Kazakhstan's Economy
Kazakhfilm-Holywood Crew to Begin Filming Nomad
SAY IT IN KAZAKH:
The weather is nice today - Bugun aurae sondai zhaksy. [Buh-ghun ah-uh-ray-eh son-dai zhahk-sy]
What is this? - Mynau ne? [Myh-nau neh?]
Public Committee to Supervise Elections
A new non-governmental organization to oversee the upcoming regional elections on September 20 and future ones was established by the three Kazakhstan-based NGOs, their leaders announced on August 28 in Astana.
In an announcement at the National Press Club, leaders of the three organizations the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions, the civil movement "For Legal Kazakhstan", and the Youth Congress of Kazakhstan, - said their goal is to ensure free and fair elections through raising legal literacy and political education of the people.
Maksut Narikbayev, head of For Legal Kazakhstan movement and former chairman of the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan, said that while the existing election legislation is far from ideal, it still provides opportunities to protect the rights of both candidates and voters. The issue is to ensure the law is observed fully.
The new organization, Public Committee for Control of Elections, as an independent public body, will both control the election process and help its participants protect their rights, Mr. Narikbayev said.
"We don't pursue any political goals of our own. The most important thing is that deputies represent the society as its true elected representatives," he added.
Nurlan Uteshev of the Youth Congress of Kazakhstan said the committee's branch offices were established in all regions of the country, to be initially financed by the movement For Legal Kazakhstan. While in the future the new organization may seek international grants, its work requires not so much as finances, but the efforts to self-organize, said Mr. Uteshev.
Valentina Sivryukova, president of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions, said the committee does not intend to draw political parties into membership as this may lead to the loss of independence. She added that the committee will strive to ensure the transparency of election process, provide consultations to parties and candidates on legal issues, and inform the public about the elections.
Currently, almost 8,000 people are running for office in September 20 elections to regional, district and city-wide maslikhats. Also in the fall, Kazakhstan's parliament is expected to take up a new election legislation, which has been drafted with the recommendations from the OSCE.
Almaty Conference Adopts Access Plan for Landlocked Countries; Calls Made to Revive Silk Road
A two-day international ministerial conference of landlocked developing countries ended on 29 August in Almaty with the adoption of a plan for improving the access of these countries to outside markets.
The Almaty Program of Action focuses on transport availability and cost, and on how to provide better access to seaports and facilitate the export of products. Low-income landlocked and transit developing countries, as well as donor states and international organizations, participated in the meeting and agreed to work together to solve these problems.
The UN has classified 30 developing states as landlocked, including Armenia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. With transit costs eating up as much as 15 percent of their export earnings, the plan is considered crucial to improving economic conditions for these countries.
Secretary General Kofi Annan, in a message read by UN Deputy Secretary General Anwarul Chowdhury, said the conference is "an opportunity for landlocked and transit developing countries and their development partners, including the private sector, to forge strong partnerships and draw much-needed attention to the difficulties of landlocked countries."
According to President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the program will be an "invaluable contribution" to the development of transit-transport interaction of interested countries.
Foreign Minister Kassymzhomart Tokaev said the conference was successful. "This conference is very important for Kazakhstan," he said. "Kazakhstan is the biggest landlocked country in the world. That's why the agreements achieved and the documents signed are very important for the Kazakh economy and for Kazakhstan's transport interests."
Brigita Schmognerova, executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), said that "the Almaty Program of Action addresses the key issues, including transit policy issues, infrastructure development and maintenance as well as trade facilitation issues."
Carlos Fortin, deputy Secretary General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) stressed that regional trade expansion and economic integration should be another key component of the search for solutions to landlocked status. "As regional trade expands, many landlocked developing countries are likely to become crossroads, the center or hub of a region." According to Fortin, this is particularly true for Kazakhstan, whose location gives it a natural advantage for becoming a natural center from which to serve the entire Central Asia.
In order to promote regional cooperation and come out of trade isolation, the Central Asian countries should revive the Silk Road, said associate administrator of the UN Development Program Zephirin Diabre. "Central Asia has provided, throughout history, a link in trade routes between East and West. Today, we must encourage you to revitalize this Silk Road and to do more to work together regionally. Despite Central Asia's geographical isolation, stronger regional cooperation and international regional integration will create larger markets that encourage investment," Diabre said.
Seventy-nine countries, including the United States, participated in the conference, as did 23 international organizations.
Banks Take Greater Role in Kazakhstan's Economy
Banking system in Kazakhstan continues to further expand as one of the pillars of the continuing strong economic growth, National Bank Chairman Grigori Marchenko told reporters in Almaty August 27.
The banks' combined assets grew five times during the past four years to 1,5 trillion tenge (10 billion US dollars), Mr. Marchenko said. In recent months, deposits of private individuals in the banks continued to grow and by July 2003 they reached 300 billion tenge (roughly 2 billion US dollars), according to Kazinform and Kazakhstan Today news agencies.
More and more people keep their savings in local currency versus foreign money, such as dollars or euros. In July 2003, the tenge deposits grew in proportion to 52.5 percent, Mr. Marchenko said.
He noted that as more people are becoming richer, they are trying to hedge their savings by investing into the real estate. He said the Kazakhstan Mortgage Company, of which the National Bank remains the sole shareholder, has contributed to the recent expansion of housing sales and construction.
While in the beginning of 2003 the company was offering interest rates at 19%, rates currently stand at 13.5% and are expected to go down to 12 percent in September 2003, the chief banker said. This "clearly demonstrates the results of the company's work."
Mr. Marchenko also confirmed that the National Bank continues to seriously consider partially privatizing the mortgage company in the nearest future through sales of portions of shares to local commercial banks, international financial organizations, or to the government of Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan's banking sector is internationally considered to be the strongest in the region of Central Asia, a reflection of several years of consistent market-oriented reforms. There are several dozen large and medium-sized banks that have respectable credit ratings from international agencies, such as Kazkommetzbank whose capitalization exceeds 1 billion dollars.
Kazakhfilm, Hollywood Producers to Begin Filming Nomad
Kazakhfilm, Kazakhstan's national film company, will next week begin shooting the Nomad, a film about the struggle of the Kazakhs for independence and statehood in the Middle Ages, the company's general director announced in Almaty last week.
The film will be done in partnership with some top Hollywood directors and actors to "ensure success in telling our history and the story of nomads, which are still unknown to the West", Kazakhfilm general director Sergei Azimov said in an interview with Ekspress-K daily newspaper. This is also the reason why the film is to be done in both Kazakh and English.
The shooting is to last three months. A total of 500 people work on the 24-million-dollar film, including 100 foreign specialists from 15 countries.
Rustam Ibragimbekov, who wrote the scripts for The Barber of Siberia, East-West, Burnt by the Sun, and 30 other films and 15 plays in 100 countries, wrote the story. Ivan Passer, who wrote scripts for Stalin, While Justice Sleeps, is the co-director of the film, as is Talgat Temenov, the renowned Kazakh director of the new wave. Milos Forman, who produced Oscar-winning One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, is invited to be the executive producer of the Nomad.
Ulrich Steiger, cameraman for Black Knight, Godzilla, Patriot, Independence Day, will work on the Nomad, as will Kazakhstan's best cameraman Aubakir Suleev. Michael O'Connor, who was co-costume designer for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, will be the costume director. Yves De Bono, known for his computer graphics in Pearl Harbor, The Life of David Gale and others, will be the special effects coordinator. Several other Hollywood-based specialists will participate.
Starring in the film will be Jason Scott Lee, Chinese-Hawaiian actor called "Hollywood's first male Asian-American sex symbol" by some critics, and a young Kazakh actress, Ayanat Yesmagambetova.
The film is slated for release both in Kazakhstan and internationally at the end of 2004.
Things to Watch:
- August 29 marked the 12th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site by the decree of President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1991. It was home to the Soviet nuclear program where 500 nuclear tests were carried out with the cumulative strength of 20,000 Hiroshima-type bombs that devastated the lives of 1,5 million people and left 1/10 of Kazakhstan's territory useless.
- One of the recent Kazakh films, Jylama, (Don't Cry), 2000, will be shown September 7 at 4:30 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art as part of the Smithsonian Silk Road Film Festival 2003.
* * *
News Bulletin of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the USA and Canada
(Compiled from own sources and various agencies' reports)
Contact person: Roman Vassilenko
Tel.: (202) 232- 5488 ext. 104, Fax: (202) 232- 5845
