Kyrgyzstan Business & Economy - The Times Of Central Asia

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Pharmaceuticals

Kyrgyzstan Pharmaceutical Logistics Complex Begins Construction in Bishkek

Construction has begun in Bishkek on what officials describe as Kyrgyzstan’s first state pharmaceutical logistics complex of its level. The new warehouse is intended to improve the storage and distribution of medicines in a country where imports account for 97% of the market. The complex is being built for Kyrgyzpharmatsiya, a state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Health that centrally procures and supplies medicines and medical products to public healthcare facilities. It will occupy a 7.1-hectare site. The project will cost 650 million som, or about $7.4 million. The facility will operate in accordance with international Good Distribution Practice, or GDP, standards, which set requirements for the storage, handling, and transportation of medicines to preserve their quality throughout the supply chain. The warehouse will form part of a broader overhaul of Kyrgyzstan’s national pharmaceutical supply system. Established in 2023, Kyrgyzpharmatsiya centralizes orders from public healthcare institutions and enters into direct contracts with manufacturers. Buying in larger volumes is intended to reduce the number of intermediaries and lower procurement costs. A unified state digital platform is also being developed to connect healthcare facilities’ requests with procurement, deliveries, and inventory data. Together with the warehouse, it is intended to provide traceability of medicines from the supplier to the healthcare facility. Funding for medicines and medical products in 2026 is budgeted at 6.8 billion som, or about $77.8 million, compared with 100 million som, or $1.1 million, in 2021. Kyrgyzstan, however, obtains nearly all of its medicines from abroad. Domestic producers account for only about 3% of the market, while medicine imports were projected to reach 34 billion som, or about $389 million, in 2025. This dependence leaves the market vulnerable to exchange-rate fluctuations, border delays, and disruptions affecting foreign suppliers. A domestic logistics center will not reduce the share of imports, but it could reduce storage losses, make it easier to maintain stocks of high-demand medicines, and speed up deliveries to hospitals. Illegal imports remain a separate problem. In November 2025, a Health Ministry official said that 2022 data put the share of smuggled medicines at around 30-40%, an estimate he said remained relevant. The figure is based on older data and should not be treated as a current measure of the market. The new complex addresses an important infrastructure gap, but by itself it does not guarantee lower prices or end shortages. The outcome will depend on procurement planning, contract transparency, and the distribution of medicines from the central warehouse to the regions.

Central Asia-South Korea Summit 2026

From Critical Minerals to Connectivity: South Korea’s Stakes in Central Asia

On September 16, Seoul hosted the first Korea–Central Asia Summit, bringing President Lee Jae Myung together with the heads of all five Central Asian states. The meeting elevated a dialogue that has run at a ministerial level since 2007 to the level of heads of state. The leaders adopted a Seoul Declaration setting the terms for future engagement and agreed to hold summits every two years. On September 14, trade and industry ministers from South Korea and the five Central Asian states met in Seoul for the first C5+Korea Industry Ministers’ Meeting. They signed a joint statement launching a standing platform for industrial cooperation. Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade used the occasion to push for a shift away from raw-material trade toward joint production and localization. Behind the diplomatic choreography sits a practical problem: the minerals both sides keep discussing cannot move without a route to carry them. A Minerals Agenda with Separate Tracks South Korea relies heavily on imported minerals for its manufacturing industries. Seoul has been developing separate plans with each country. With Tajikistan, discussions have focused on gold and silver, alongside antimony. With Kyrgyzstan, Seoul has been discussing antimony and tungsten. Cooperation with Uzbekistan covers minerals and digital manufacturing. With Kazakhstan, a central issue is moving beyond raw exports toward processing inside the country, as The Times of Central Asia reported ahead of the summit. South Korean firms are pursuing supply diversification independently. POSCO International and LX International have been expanding overseas mineral investments, including graphite and nickel projects, amid Chinese export restrictions. The Transport Connection Consider the Bolashak chrome mine in Kazakhstan, which Eurasian Resources Group launched in late 2024. The company plans to ramp it up to a design capacity of 7.5 million metric tons of chrome ore a year. Production on that scale makes reliable transport an essential part of the commercial equation. An Atlantic Council analysis identifies limited processing capacity and underdeveloped westward routes as obstacles to U.S. mineral partnerships with Central Asia. It presents the Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor as a route to Western markets that avoids Russian and Iranian territory. That argument needs a distinction when applied to Korea. The corridor runs westward toward Europe; it is not a prerequisite for minerals to reach South Korea. Its relevance is the wider choice of buyers it could offer Central Asian producers, including potential Korean-backed processing ventures serving those markets. That corridor is being built out. The Aktau container hub has a planned capacity of 240,000 twenty-foot equivalent units. The World Bank-backed Mointy–Kyzylzhar railway is meant to remove a 149-kilometer detour and accommodate 30 train pairs a day, against roughly ten on the existing constrained route. Traffic is already rising: 125 container trains crossed Kazakhstan on the Trans-Caspian route in the first quarter of 2026, up 34.4% year-on-year. Japan has also become involved, pledging in August 2025 to help modernize customs operations at the port of Aktau. The Seoul Declaration also backs Korean participation in transport infrastructure, including modernization and digitalization. In...

TCA Interviews

Kyrgyzstan’s High-Wire Act: Sanctions, Compliance, and National Interest

On September 2, the day after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Heads of State Summit in Bishkek, The Times of Central Asia spoke with Bakyt Sydykov, Kyrgyzstan’s Minister of Economy and Commerce and Special Presidential Representative for Sanctions Policy. He outlined the government’s approach to sanctions compliance and protecting Kyrgyz businesses. Sanctions exposure can affect Kyrgyz banks and businesses, as well as their international partners. U.S. secondary sanctions and EU and UK measures affecting foreign entities operate through different legal mechanisms. Some portions of the text have been edited for clarity. TCA: The sanctions against Russia adopted by the U.S., EU, and UK are not UN Security Council-mandated. Is it correct that Kyrgyzstan’s compliance policy addresses these measures rather than UN-mandated sanctions? Sydykov: That's correct. Secondary sanctions can affect non-U.S., non-EU, and non-UK entities or persons who knowingly facilitate transactions involving sanctioned parties. Our focus is on establishing better and better mechanisms and frameworks that address this bilateral dimension, that is, Kyrgyzstan's direct exposure through its relations with the sanctioning jurisdictions, in order to mitigate our exposure to potential secondary sanctions. TCA: Kyrgyz citizens and businesses can face sanctions exposure through dealings with sanctioned parties, including the risk of U.S. secondary sanctions. What are Kyrgyzstan’s main challenges in improving its compliance regime, and how are you addressing them? Sydykov: For technical reasons, our compliance regime is moving toward putting in place mechanisms that can flag or be anticipatory. I think you would agree that free markets are complicated and circumvention often comes to light only after it has occurred. We are largely equipped to manage these occurrences. We are moving to put in place firewall-like frameworks which would allow the country to identify and respond to occurrences before the fact. It is a great challenge — and one that every country operating in a free-market economy faces — to develop such a capacity, namely, to anticipate and prevent circumvention before it happens. Despite our best efforts, this remains a structural limitation. TCA: What concrete actions have you taken, or are you planning to take? Sydykov: We have established working groups, task forces, and interagency committees capable of swiftly halting the operations of any company engaged in sanctions circumvention. We are also working closely with commercial banks on these efforts. The banks, for their part, have introduced internal compliance committees and, in some cases, adjusted the composition of their boards of directors to strengthen governance and decision-making around potential circumvention risks. The banks are also developing a joint interbank blacklist of sanctioned entities, so that these entities are unable to operate through the banking system going forward. Those are steps to develop a working forward-looking, predictive approach — one that flags suspicious activity before it materializes – central to the comprehensive framework we are building. TCA: Some foreign investors may be reluctant to invest in Kyrgyzstan because of sanctions exposure. How could the measures you are taking address those concerns? Sydykov: Let me first say that we understand the rationale behind...

Gold Mining

AzerGold Eyes Gold Mining Projects in Kyrgyzstan

Azerbaijan’s state-owned mining company AzerGold is exploring potential gold and other mineral projects in Kyrgyzstan as it looks to expand its operations in Central Asia. On September 14, AzerGold Chairman Zakir Ibrahimov met executives from Kyrgyzaltyn, Kyrgyzstan’s state-owned gold mining company, to discuss potential joint mining and exploration projects. The two companies formalized their initial agreement on July 31 in Cholpon-Ata, where AzerGold and Kyrgyzaltyn signed a memorandum of cooperation. A month and a half later, the Azerbaijani delegation traveled to see Kyrgyzstan’s gold mining operations firsthand. One of the stops was the Altynken gold mine in the Chuy Region. It is operated by a joint venture between Kyrgyzaltyn and a subsidiary of China’s Zijin Mining. Kyrgyzaltyn holds 40% of the venture, and Zijin 60%. The AzerGold delegation was shown the mine and its processing facilities. It then traveled to Kyrgyzaltyn’s refinery in Kara-Balta, giving the delegation a view of both extraction and refining operations. For AzerGold, Kyrgyzstan would mark another step in a recently launched international expansion. In June, the company signed an agreement in Tashkent on the joint development of a gold deposit in Uzbekistan, albeit with scant details. AzerGold nevertheless described the Uzbek project as the first major step in its international growth and has identified Central Asia as one of its priority regions for expansion. The talks in Bishkek suggest it is now looking for a second foothold in the region. For Kyrgyzaltyn, interest from a new partner comes after major changes in the country’s gold mining industry. The most significant was the long-running dispute over Kumtor, Kyrgyzstan’s largest gold mine. The government took control of the mine from Canada-based Centerra Gold in May 2021. Under a settlement reached the following year, Centerra transferred ownership of its Kyrgyz subsidiaries to Kyrgyzaltyn, while Kyrgyzaltyn gave up its roughly 26% stake in Centerra. That episode did not end Kyrgyzstan’s use of foreign mining capital. Kyrgyzaltyn remains partnered with Chinese investors at Altynken, while an Indian-backed project at the Altyn-Tor section of the Solton-Sary deposit reached the production stage this month. Kyrgyzaltyn holds 35% of that venture and Avelum Partner, controlled by India’s Deccan Gold Mines, holds 65%. AzerGold could now become another foreign partner in the state company’s portfolio.

Mining Investment

Indian Gold Mining Project in Kyrgyzstan Reaches Production Stage

An Indian-backed gold project has moved into the production stage at the high-altitude Solton-Sary deposit in Kyrgyzstan, nearly five years after its developer signed an agreement with the state-owned Kyrgyzaltyn company. Deccan Gold Mines says it is the first Indian investment in Kyrgyzstan’s gold mining sector to reach this stage. On September 12, a gold processing plant began test operations at the Altyn-Tor section of the Solton-Sary deposit in the Naryn Region. The project is being developed by Avelum Partner, in which India’s Deccan Gold Mines holds a controlling stake, together with Kyrgyzaltyn. The two sides have been working together since December 2021. Under their partnership agreement, Kyrgyzaltyn holds a 35% stake, while Avelum Partner holds 65%. The project involves the comprehensive development of Altyn-Tor, including the processing of accumulated tailings and waste rock. Solton-Sary is located about 355 kilometers from Bishkek at an altitude of 3,500–3,600 meters. Soviet geologists first studied the deposit, and trial production at Altyn-Tor began in 1994. Operations have since been intermittent. Investment in the project reached $34.2 million by the end of August 2026. The foundation stone for the new plant was laid in July 2024. At the time, Kyrgyzaltyn said that once the facility reached its planned operating capacity, it was expected to create at least 400 jobs, more than 95% of them for Kyrgyz citizens. The agreement also stipulates that commercial-grade gold produced at the facility must be transferred to Kyrgyzaltyn and cannot be exported independently by the Indian partner. The structure is significant in a mining sector where foreign ownership has repeatedly become politically contentious. The most prominent example is Kumtor, Kyrgyzstan’s largest gold mine, which the government took under state control from Canada’s Centerra Gold in 2021. A settlement the following year transferred ownership to Kyrgyzaltyn. At Altyn-Tor, by contrast, Kyrgyzaltyn remains a partner in the project while the foreign investor provides most of the investment. Chinese investment is also present at Solton-Sary itself, although its history there has been considerably more complicated. The deposit consists of three main gold-bearing sections – Altyn-Tor, Buchuk, and Ak-Tash. Total gold reserves have been estimated at about 20 metric tons. Buchuk is being developed by the Kyrgyz-Chinese company Zhong Ji Mining. Explored gold reserves at the site are estimated at 12 metric tons, while geologists have indicated a possible additional 22 metric tons of gold resources. The project became the center of a major dispute over foreign mining investment in 2019. In August of that year, hundreds of residents of the Naryn Region gathered near Zhong Ji Mining’s operations. Local residents linked mining activity to livestock deaths and feared environmental contamination. On August 5, the protest escalated into clashes with Chinese workers, and more than 20 people received medical treatment. The authorities suspended operations, while the company removed some of its workers and equipment. When President Sadyr Japarov visited Solton-Sary in 2022, the Chinese project was still not operating. Local residents again raised concerns about the environment and the condition of roads. Japarov said...

Logistic Hub

$100 Million Kyrgyzstan Logistics Center Planned Near China Border

Kyrgyzstan plans to establish a logistics center near its border with China, with up to $100 million in investment to be attracted for the project. The center would help connect Chinese freight with routes through Uzbekistan and Afghanistan toward Pakistan, giving landlocked Kyrgyzstan another possible route to South Asian ports. On September 10, Kyrgyzstan’s National Investment Agency and local company Textile Trans signed a memorandum on establishing the Sary-Tash international transport and logistics center. The project also includes plans for a textile manufacturing cluster. Sary-Tash is located in the Alay Valley in southern Osh Region, around 70 kilometers from the Irkeshtam border crossing with China. It sits on the Osh-Sary-Tash-Irkeshtam road and at a junction with routes toward Tajikistan. The planned center is intended to handle cargo moving along the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan route, with possible onward access to Pakistan. It would include warehouse and transshipment facilities, along with customs services and a digital system for monitoring cargo. The Osh-Sary-Tash-Irkeshtam corridor is also included in Kyrgyzstan’s draft Logistics Framework Map for 2026–2030, which was released for public consultation in August. The plan also covers the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which is being built along a separate route through Torugart, Arpa, Makmal, and Jalal-Abad. The Sary-Tash project comes as Bishkek looks for shorter trade routes to South Asia. On September 2, during Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan signed a Transit Trade Agreement. The agreement is intended to make trade and transit between the two countries easier. Kyrgyzstan has identified the Pakistani ports of Karachi, Port Qasim, and Gwadar as possible gateways to international markets. Trade between the two countries remains limited. During talks with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, Sharif said the two sides wanted to raise annual bilateral trade from about $16 million to $200 million within two years. Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan do not share a border. One possible route runs through Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, while another passes through China. Bishkek tested the China route in April 2026. A truck traveled about 3,300 kilometers from Bishkek through the Torugart crossing into China, then continued via Kashgar and the Karakoram Highway before crossing the Khunjerab Pass into Pakistan and reaching Karachi. That route bypasses Afghanistan and gives Kyrgyzstan direct road access to Pakistan’s seaports. Sary-Tash lies on a different road toward China, near Irkeshtam. The planned logistics center would allow goods to be stored and transferred there before continuing along regional transport routes. The announced $100 million is not secured financing. The memorandum says the project aims to attract investment of up to that amount. No construction timetable or opening date has been announced.