| September 4-September 11, 1999 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hotel Sheraton-Tashkent opens
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|  ast week a new fine hotel was inaugurated in Tashkent. The four-star hotel was built by French Bouygues and is the property of Tashkent City Mayor's Office. The hotel will be managed by American Sheraton. The project cost 243 million French francs - a credit from the Societe Generale bank (70%) and the money of the Mayor's Office. The area of the 17-storeyed and 250-suite hotel is 21 thousand square meters. Initially the Mayor's Office of Tashkent City was negotiating with another American company - Hilton International on the management of the hotel. Now there are four 4-star hotels in Tashkent: LeMeridien, owned by Indonesian Bakrie Group and built by Indian Tata Projected; British Inter-Continental owned by the Uzbek Ministry for Foreign Economic Relations and built by the Turkish Ay-Sel in 1996; and Shodlik Palace, former "Yoshlik" hotel that was reconstructed by German Impro in 1997 and managed by German SRC&.
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Mufti offers mediation in freeing Japan hostages
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|  mufti in this Russia's far eastern city has offered his mediation in talks with
Islamic guerillas that are holding four Japanese geologists hostages somewhere in southern hills of Kyrgyzstan.
A radical Uzbek Moslem group invaded two weeks ago from the territory of neighbouring Tajikistan and seized several
hostages including the Japanese geologists.
Mufti Alimkhan Magripov approached the Japanese Consul General in Vladivostok saying he might play an important role in
finding and freeing the Japanese citizens from captivity.
Magripov, who speaks Russian, Uzbek, Kirghiz and Azerbaijanian, had arrived in Russia's Far East from Uzbekistan.
According to him, some 200,000 people in the Meritime Territory are Moslems.
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Six Uzbek tourists taken hostage in Kyrgyzstan freed
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|  ix Uzbek tourists who had been taken hostage in Kyrgyzstan arrived in the Uzbek city
of Fergana on Monday, a source in Uzbekistan told Itar-Tass by telephone.
The six tourists were kidnapped in Kyrgyzstan on August 21. All of them are safe and sound now, and they will fly out later in the
day for Tashkent where they live.
The head of the tourist group, Ravil Ahsanov, told Itar-Tass by telephone that the gunmen's treatment of them was rather
tolerable, there was no physical violence, if not to take into consideration attempts to put a psychological pressure on some of
the hostages. In particular, the gunmen tried to persuade Russians who were in the group to adopt the Islam religion.
According to Ahsanov, the tourists were kidnapped by a group of more than 40 gunmen who were well armed with
Kalashnikov submachine guns, machine guns and grenade launchers. Among the group were snipers armed with optical-sight
rifles.
The gunmen gave only bread and tea to the hostages. The captives had hot meal only for three times during all the time, the head
of the tourist group said.
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Uzbekistan Airways accepts its first Boeing 757-200
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|  he Boeing Company September 3 delivered
Uzbekistan Airways' first of two 757-200s to be used for scheduled
service. Attending this milestone event were Arslan Ruzmetov, director
general - Uzbekistan Airways and Doug Groseclose, Boeing vice
president - South Asia/Pacific, Africa, and Middle East Sales -
Commercial Airplanes Group.
Established in 1992, Uzbekistan Airways has grown to become one of the
largest carriers in Central Asia. Uzbekistan Airways' current
scheduled-service fleet consists of two 767-300ERs, three A310s, three
RJ85s, and numerous Russian-built jets.
"Because we are already operating the Boeing 767, it makes good
business sense to select the 757 to help support our rapidly expanding
international system," Ruzmetov said.
Boeing concurrently developed the single-aisle 757 and twin-aisle 767, so
both share the same common flight deck, technological advancements,
and ground equipment to keep operating costs down and operation
efficient. This commonality reduces training and spares requirements when
both are operated in the same fleet. The 757 and 767 also have a
common type-rating, which offers more flexibility and economic benefits
such as pilot-pooling and economies of scale for training.
"Uzbekistan Airways is operating in an important, emerging area of the
world," Groseclose said. "Boeing is pleased to be a part of Uzbekistan
Airways' success, and looks forward to contributing to the airline's
continued success in the future."
Uzbekistan Airways configured its new airplane to carry 184 passengers -
26 in business class and the remainder in the economy section. The airline
plans to use the 757-200 fleet for routes connecting Uzbekistan to several
cities in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The new plane is named "Urgench".
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Uzbekistan forecasts 4.1 mln. ton raw cotton in 1999
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|  zbekistan expects to harvest 4.1 million tonnes of raw cotton in 1999, sharply up from 3.22
million tonnes in 1998, an agriculture ministry official said on Tuesday.
"According to our calculations, around 4.1 million tonnes are growing," the official said, adding that the state plan this year was
to produce 4.0 million tonnes of raw cotton.
Cotton is Uzbekistan's agricultural mainstay and accounts for a large slice of its foreign export earnings. Almost all of the cotton
is exported.
Last year's cotton fibre exports raised $1.36 billion for state coffers, or 39 percent of export revenues.
The official said that 1.5 million hectares of land had been sown to cotton in the current campaign, 300,000 hectares of which
were resown due to cold weather in spring and pest damage.
The weather outlook for harvesting was positive, he said.
"In September we are expecting it to be warm and dry. This year farmers tended to their crops better than ever, and insects and
locusts have caused barely any damage," he said.
Some farms had begun to gather their crops, but the main campaign was due to begin after September 10, the ministry said.
Uzbekistan, a mostly desert state of 24 million, planned to produce 4.0 million tonnes last year, but poor weather and ageing
machinery led to its worst crop in the last 20 years.
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International TV market comes to end in Tashkent
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| he internaltional TV market, which was attended by 120 countries, has come to an
end in Tashkent.
As Itar-Tass was explained at the market organzing committee, leading TV specialists of the world had chosen Uzbekistan for
such a reputable forum among the CIS countries for the first time.
Products of TV companies of many countries, including the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany, were presented
at the market's exhibition. Russian representatives were among the participants of the market as well.
A seminar was held within the framework of the market to discuss issues of the broader use of Internet's oppotunities, the latest
news in TV business, preparation and exchange of TV programmes and copyright legislation.
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Saudi Arabia allocates $50 mln. to Uzbekistan
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| audi Arabia has allocated 500 million U.S. dollars to Uzbekistan. This amount is
target-oriented and will be used by the country's oil-and-fat sector, an official in the Uzbekistan Ministry for Foreign Economic
Relations has told Itar-Tass.
The project is to be implemented within five years. The first 100,000 USD are to be used to modernise oil-and-butter producing
enterprises.
Twenty oil-and-fat producing plants operate in Uzbekistan. Their aggregate output is approximately 240,000 tonnes of
vegetable oil a year. Estimates have it that this amount meets 80 percent of the republic's requirements. The modernisation of the
production of oils will substantially reduce the import of these products.
The vegetable oil producing sector is not the only one in which Saudi businessmen intend to invest money. They conduct
negotiations with their Uzbek partners on investments in the enterprises of the food, meat-and-dairy, and fruit-and-vegetable
branches of industry.
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Uzbekistan carried out 58 UNDP projects
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| zbekistan has carried out 58 projects
worth 20 million dollars as part of the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), a source in the UNDP Tashkent office told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
One of them -- aimed at creating a network of business incubators in the former
Soviet Central Asian republic -- is expected to expand the range of services they
provide to small businessmen.
Another project provides for a video centre to be set up in two years to prepare
programmes in the field of technology and equipment. The project costs
300,000 dollars.
The rest are concerned with environment protection and the struggle against
cattle diseases.
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