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This might not seem like the right time to dip a first-time toe into the markets of Russia and Central Asia or to attempt expansion of established business.
Like the rest of the world, the region has suffered since the collapse of Lehman brothers, just over a year ago, lit the blue touch paper of recession.
You know times are hard when Aeroflot plans to axe 2,000 jobs, the former Soviet republics report diminishing returns, and Moscow’s Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea Football Club, is down to his last £5.2billion.
But the experts are sowing seeds of optimism. UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), for example, forecasts that the Russian Federation, the UK’s 12th largest export market, has the massive resources to bounce back to medium-term growth, and will be looking for British expertise in financial services, airport development and construction projects.
Similarly, Central Asian nations need investment in everything from the oil and gas industries to power generation equipment and pharmaceuticals. Look to Kazakhstan, where a large number of SMEs are already operating in the oil services sector, to Kyrgyzstan, which needs urgent assistance in exploiting its deposits of coal and rare minerals or to Pakistan, which all see the UK as the country of choice with which to do business.
Boeing shares UKTI’s sanguine approach, claiming that the economies of some countries in the region might be slowing but many are showing solid increases in GDP, forecast to grow by 3.7 per cent per year, ahead of the global average of just three per cent. Buoyed by its predictions, the plane maker believes the region will require more than 1,000 new aircraft over the next few years to support economic growth.
Hopefully, many will forge new routes to the UK. While Russia is served by four airlines from London, and there are direct services from Britain to Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, getting to other Central Asian destinations needs careful planning.
In many instances, there are services around the region via Moscow. Otherwise, it’s a case of catching connections from continental Europe, with Lufthansa, KLM, Air France and Turkish Airlines, all with non-stop links to Central Asia.
Take the time and trouble to sort through the business opportunities and flight permutations, and your company could be among the first to benefit when the good times roll again.
Moscow, Russia
Russia’s nouveau riche have a reputation for flaunting their wealth in the capital of the Russian Federation. But the oligarchs have become less conspicuous since the onset of the economic downturn. In 2008, Moscow had 74 billionaires, today it has 27.
Comrade Lenin might turn in his grave at such capitalist notions, but Moscow is nevertheless driven by the profit motive. As a major economic and industrial centre, it is home to a range of multi-national companies; Gazprom, the largest extractor of natural gas in the world; and primary players in manufacturing and development, including the chemical, energy, software, aerospace and automobile industries.
From London Heathrow, British Airways offers up to 16 flights a week to Moscow, bmi flies twice daily, and Transaero four times a day, with Aeroflot operating a similar frequency. Departures from continental Europe include Lufthansa from Berlin, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich, plus Air France from Paris Charles de Gaulle and KLM from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
Novosibirsk, Russia
Located on the steppes in Western Siberia, Novosibirsk is an industrial powerhouse. The major activities include refining basic metals and fabricating metal products; electricity, gas and water supply; fuel extraction, food products and beverages. The manifest goes on, with manufacturing output including everything from electrical equipment to microchips.
With no direct services from the UK to Novosibirsk, the most viable option is to fly to Moscow and travel onwards with Aeroflot.
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Formerly known as Gorky, after the Russian writer Maxim Gorky, Nizhny Novgorod is the fourth-largest city in Russia, one of the nation’s main economic and transportation hubs, situated in the vast Volga-Vyatka region. While auto-mobiles, diesel engines, aircraft and machine tools are the leading industries, information technology is of increasing importance.
There are no direct flights from the UK to Nizhyny Novgorod, which means flying from Moscow with Aeroflot, or joining one of Lufthansa’s four services a week out of Frankfurt.
Yekaterinburg, Russia
Situated in the centre of Russia, Yekaterinburg will forever be remembered as the city where Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children were executed by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. It is heavily involved in the machinery and metal processing industries, and as a centre of learning, houses a branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, numerous R&D establishments, and no less than 16 universities.
The only flights to Yekaterinburg are with Aeroflot from Moscow, or there’s Lufthansa’s four departures a week out of Frankfurt.
Darwin, Australia
The economy of the capital of the Northern Territory is based on mining, tourism and energy production. It has considerable reserves of minerals, and oil and natural gas are sourced from the Timor Sea. This exploitation is boosting Darwin’s importance as a port, its trade with Asia on the increase.
The only direct routeing from the UK is with Qantas to Singapore, the airline flying on to Darwin in a code-share agreement with Jetstar.
Astana, Kazakhastan
The capital of Kazakhstan has attracted controversy ever since it gained that status from Almaty in 1997. Government officials lobbied for the move on the grounds that Almaty was prone to earthquakes and there was no room for expansion; ordinary Kazakhs said building new government complexes would be horrendously expensive. In the event, the bureaucrats won the day and the critics were proved right. Since the move, Astana has become a centre for government and banking, and seen one of world’s greatest building projects, with oil money poured not only into offices for the administration, but also into a showpiece home for the president.
With no direct flights from the UK to Astana, the alternative is to fly from Heathrow with Air Astana or bmi, both services via Almaty. Other options include Air Astana’s six direct flights a week from Frankfurt, and Lufthansa’s twice-weekly departure from the German hub..
Almaty, Kazakhastan
It might no longer be the capital of Kazakhstan, but Almaty remains its primary commercial centre and is becoming an economic force in Central Asia. It is the hub for the exploitation of Kazakhstan’s enormous reserves of fossil fuels, other minerals and metals. This has attracted significant foreign investment, enabling the biggest of the former Soviet republics to become one of the world’s biggest oil-producing nations.
From Heathrow, Air Astana flies non-stop to Almaty twice a week; bmi three times a week. Other routings include Lufthansa from Frankfurt, and KLM out of Amsterdam.
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Set against a spectacular mountain backdrop, Bishkek is the capital of, and the largest city in, Kyrgyzstan, a poor country with a predominantly agricultural economy, although it exports natural resources such as gold, mercury, uranium and gas, as well as electricity. The country’s financial centre, the capital also has small-scale machine-building and metalworking sectors.
bmi flies thrice-weekly from Heathrow to Bishkek, via Almaty.
Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Badly damaged in the civil war that followed the gaining of the country’s independence, Dushanbe has since become a growing commercial and industrial centre. Renovated and today a pleasant, European-style city, the Tajikistan capital relies on the nearby mining of coal, lead and arsenic for its industrial base, and also produces silk and machinery. It is also home to a number of telecoms and aeronautical corporations.
With no direct flights from the UK, the choices for getting to the Tajikistan capital include Turkish Airlines or Tajik Air from Istanbul, Kyrgyzstan Airlines or Tajik Air from Bishkek, and Tajik Air from Almaty, Sharjah and Moscow.
Islamabad, Pakistan
Built in the 1960s to replace Karachi as Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad is one of the greenest and best-planned cities in the region. Most of the country’s state-owned companies are in town, together with branches of Karachi-based banks and numerous players in the growing telecommunications sector.
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flies to Islamabad four times a week from Heathrow, and has a thrice-weekly service from Birmingham. It has also taken over the three-times-a-week departure from Leeds/Bradford vacated by Shaheen Air in March this year. In addition, Kyrgyzstan Airlines serves the Pakistani capital from Bishkek.
Lahore, Pakistan
The capital of the Punjab is the second-largest financial centre in Pakistan. The hub of hand-made carpet manufacture in the country, the city also depends for its prosperity on computer assembly and telecoms, and on the presence of many government institutions and international companies, such as Pakistan Railways, Coca-Cola and Rolls-Royce.
PIA flies to Lahore three times a week from London Heathrow.
Karachi, Pakistan
At the southern tip of North Island, Wellington is New Zealand’s political epicentre, the seat of parliament, and the head office of all government ministries and departments. The nation’s capital is also the hub of its film and theatre industry. There are no direct international air routes to New Zealand’s capital. Instead, travellers from the UK should take a flight to Auckland or Christchurch and join a domestic service, or fly from an Australian gateway airport.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
The capital and largest city in Turkmenistan, Ashgabat is a government and administrative centre, with its industries including the manufacture of textiles and metal working. There are ambitious plans to transform the capital into one of the most beautiful metropolises in the world, and to make it a major financial and scientific research player within the region.
Turkmenistan Airlines flies to Ashgabat twice-weekly from Heathrow, four times a week out of Birmingham. Lufthansa serves the city from Frankfurt, via Baku, Azerbaijan..
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
The attractive capital of landlocked Uzbekistan marked its severance from Soviet domination in 1991 by replacing the largest-ever statue of Lenin with a globe, signalling its intention of re-entering the international arena.
Tashkent has since emerged as the world’s second-largest exporter of cotton and seventh-largest producer of gold, and is developing its reserves of natural gas, oil, coal, copper, silver and uranium.
Uzbekistan Airlines offers two flights a week from Heathrow to Tashkent, while Czech Airlines launched a twice-weekly link to the Uzbek capital from Prague in August, and Lufthansa is to introduce three flights a week from Munich in April 2010.
THE CARBON COST
The table below shows the distance covered by a return flight between London and the destination, along with the approximate carbon emissions and the cost of offsetting it with the CarbonNeutral Company. See: www.carbonneutral.com
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