Central Asia

Emboldened by the ability of its neighbour Tajikistan to access the capital markets, Uzbekistan is preparing ground to secure its first sovereign rating, with a view to issuing a Eurobond in the future, according to sources.

Economic growth in Central Asia is picking up but experts at the IMF are concerned that leaders are not doing enough to address fiscal deficits

This article is the fourth and final part of a series on China’s Belt and Road Initiative that we are publishing during the 2017 IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Washington DC. We have devoted two articles to the Road element, and two to the Belt element, of which this piece is the second and focuses on the western part of the overland route

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), an operator of exchanges and clearing houses, on Monday announced clearing services for CDS referencing Saudi Arabia, as well as for a host of emerging market and Asia-Pacific corporate single names.

Kazakhstan’s KazTransGas has made its debut in the bond markets, raising $750m of 10 year money at a price close to where its state-run owner, KazMunaiGas, trades.

Kazakhstan’s KazTransGas has made its debut in the bond markets, raising $750m of 10 year money close to where its state-run owner KazMunaiGas trades.

Kazakhstan’s KazTransGas has opened books on a debut 10 year dollar benchmark trade with initial price thoughts that leads reckon is around 30bp back of its similarly rated state-run owner, KazMunayGas.

KazMunayGas Kashagan (KMGK), one of the owners of the Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan, has increased a five year secured oil prepayment loan facility to $2bn, to fund repayments to buyers under its production sharing agreement.

KazTransGas, the largest gas supply company in Kazakhstan, has picked banks for a debut 10 year dollar benchmark after Standard & Poor’s revised the country’s outlook to stable on Friday.

Emerging market bonds remain set for a busy September as weak US data pushed dulled expectations of Federal Reserve rate hikes, outweighing escalating tensions between the US and Korea, and the Kenyan Supreme Court's decision to annul the result of the August 8 election.

With a GDP per capita of just $796, and foreign exchange reserves that cover just 9% of debt obligations, the Republic of Tajikistan cannot claim to be a frontier market, let alone an emerging market country. But that should be no obstacle as the Central Asian state approaches a bond market that has seen Belarus and Iraq raise debt with ease in recent months.

News of Otkritie’s bail-out has filled the buy-side with questions about the nature of the Centra Bank of Russia’s recovery plans sending Otkritie’s subordinated bonds yo-yoing between a cash price of 49 and low to mid 80s.