Kyrgyzstan - The Times Of Central Asia

Viewing results 19 - 24 of 2039

Waste-to-Energy

Chinese Firm Proposes $95 Million Kyrgyzstan Waste-to-Energy Plant

A subsidiary of the state-owned China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group (CECEP) is considering a $95 million waste-to-energy plant in southern Kyrgyzstan. CECEP Environmental Protection’s proposal comes as Chinese companies play a growing role in turning municipal waste into electricity and heat in the country. Company representatives discussed the proposal on November 3 with Ravshanbek Sabirov, director of the National Investment Agency under the President of the Kyrgyz Republic. The proposed complex would initially process 800 metric tons of waste per day, equivalent to 292,000 tons annually if operated continuously. Capacity could eventually rise to 2,000 tons per day. The city of Manas, formerly Jalal-Abad, and the nearby Suzak district are being considered as possible locations. Feasibility and environmental studies are still needed to establish the project’s final design and cost. The agency announced neither an investment agreement nor a construction timetable. In December 2025, Bishkek opened what authorities described as Central Asia’s first operational waste-to-energy plant. Built by China’s Hunan Junxin Environmental Protection at a cost of $95 million, the facility was designed to process 1,000 metric tons of municipal waste daily and generate up to 30 megawatts of electricity. The plant operates at Bishkek’s main landfill, where decades of accumulated waste have created environmental problems for surrounding communities. It was developed under a 35-year concession agreement, after which it is to be transferred to the state. Construction of a second phase began in June 2026. The expansion is intended to raise total processing capacity to 3,000 tons per day and electricity generation capacity to 90 megawatts. Hunan Junxin is also involved in a waste-to-energy plant under construction in Osh and a project in the Issyk-Kul region. A groundbreaking ceremony for the latter was held in Karakol in October 2025, with initial facilities planned for the Ak-Suu district and Balykchy. Waste-to-energy plants reduce the volume of material sent to landfills, but incineration is not recycling. Recovering reusable materials such as plastics and paper requires separate collection and sorting systems. Environmental performance also depends on emissions controls and the treatment of ash and other residues. In an earlier interview with The Times of Central Asia, Chinara Sultanalieva, founder of the UpKel recycling project, said contaminated plastic and inadequate collection infrastructure made it difficult for recycling businesses to secure reliable supplies of usable material.

International Flights

China–Central Asia Flights Expand as Aviation Booms

Passenger and cargo links between Central Asia and China are expanding, with 117 scheduled weekly flights now connecting Kazakhstan and China, up 52% from a year earlier. Aviation officials from China and the five Central Asian countries are meeting in Tashkent on November 3–5 to discuss opening the market further. Trade between China and Central Asia reached $106.3 billion in 2025, up 12% from the previous year. The expansion of aviation has coincided with rising tourism and the gradual easing of restrictions on airlines across the region. Kazakhstan introduced an "open skies" policy at major airports in 2019, relaxing limits on foreign carriers, while Uzbekistan has also eased access to its market. A Decade of Aviation Growth According to a Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) study published on October 13, Central Asian airlines carried 31.7 million passengers in 2025, almost twice as many as in 2019. Between 2015 and 2025, the number of airline seats available in the region grew by an average of 7.7% annually, nearly three times the global rate. Low-cost airlines accounted for 21% of the region's available seats in 2025, with Kazakhstan's FlyArystan the largest operator in this segment. Air cargo carried by the region's airlines more than quadrupled between 2023 and 2025, reaching 335,700 metric tons. Uzbek operators accounted for approximately 67% of the total. Kazakhstan Leads the Passenger Market Kazakhstan accounted for 48.7% of Central Asia's airline passenger traffic in 2025, the largest share in the region, according to the EDB. By late October 2026, airlines were operating 21 routes between Kazakhstan and China and had carried more than one million passengers between the two countries since the beginning of the year, according to Kazakhstan's Ministry of Transport. In July, the two countries' aviation authorities agreed to increase the permitted number of weekly flights from 124 to 152. The list of approved destinations in China expanded to 11 cities, including Chongqing. The negotiations also addressed the possibility of opening a third air corridor across their shared border to accommodate additional flights. New routes launched this year include FlyArystan's services from Almaty to Xi'an in June and Chongqing in September. Air Astana also began flying between Astana and Guangzhou in June. On October 30, Air Astana and China Southern Airlines signed a strategic partnership agreement intended to make connecting flights between their networks easier. It builds on their existing codeshare arrangements, which allow the airlines to sell tickets on one another's flights. Uzbekistan Expands Passenger and Cargo Flights Uzbekistan has Central Asia's second-largest passenger aviation market. Its airports handled 12.66 million passengers in the first nine months of 2026, up 13% year over year, according to Uzbekistan Airports. Uzbekistan's Ministry of Transport reported in August 2025 that 61 passenger flights and more than 120 cargo and transit flights were operating weekly between Uzbekistan and China. The expansion followed agreements that increased the number of airlines permitted to operate between the two countries and gave carriers greater rights to transport freight through third countries. China Eastern Airlines...

Football

Asian Cup Postponement Delays Central Asian Football Hopes

Tajikistan’s football team planned to be “fully prepared” for the Asian Cup finals in Saudi Arabia in early 2027, coach Igor Angelovski of North Macedonia said months ago. But the Tajik footballers and the rest of the competition will have to wait. On Tuesday, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said the region’s top football tournament, which had been scheduled for January 7 to February 5 next year, will instead take place from December 23, 2027 to January 21, 2028. Amid conflict in the Middle East, the Asian Cup’s organizing committee cited “the current exceptional circumstances arising from developments in the region, including substantial logistical complexities and travel disruptions.” It said the unusual situation had made postponement “necessary in the interest of all participating teams, officials, spectators and other stakeholders” and that the new dates of the tournament would be presented to world football’s governing body, FIFA, for approval. Saudi Arabia has been caught up in the regional conflict this year, with some of its infrastructure, including Riyadh’s international airport, targeted in aerial attacks. The Asian Cup postponement disrupts the preparations of national teams that have qualified, including Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan did not qualify for the Asian Cup, falling short in a critical loss to Thailand. Kazakhstan’s football federation transferred from the AFC to the Union of European Football Associations in 2002, and its national team participates in European competitions. Tajikistan posted some strong results earlier this year, finishing at the top of Group A in the final round of qualifying for the Asian Cup. The underdog Tajik team made an impressive run to the quarterfinals of the Asian Cup that was played in Qatar in early 2024, in its debut at the tournament after past failed attempts to qualify.

Museum Conservation

Central Asian Museum Experts Visit U.S. to Study Heritage Preservation

A group of museum workers and other cultural heritage specialists from Central Asia are currently in the United States to study preservation practices and exchange experiences with counterparts at the Getty Museum and other American institutions. Experts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are participating in the tour, which began on October 17 and will end on November 7, according to Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Culture. It said the goal is to learn more about cultural heritage preservation, the planning and designing of exhibitions, and how to ensure the safety of museum facilities. The trip is occurring under the auspices of a U.S. Department of State program aimed at facilitating exchanges with museum professionals from Central Asia. The program was discussed by Sarah B. Rogers, under secretary for public diplomacy, during a visit to Ashgabat in June. “These Central Asian countries have some of the world’s greatest cultural heritage, these ancient sites from the Silk Road, and so engaging with their museum professionals on antiquities preservation is a great line of effort for us,” Rogers said at the time. The visit began in Washington, D.C., where the representatives from Central Asia learned about U.S. policy on countering the illegal trafficking of cultural heritage. The group later traveled to Los Angeles. There, experts discussed the joint project between the Getty Museum and Turkmenistan’s State Museum to restore and conserve an ancient Buddha head that was found in Merv, an ancient Silk Road city in the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan, in 1960. “It was unearthed in the stupa of a Buddhist monastery within the Gyaur Kala at Merv, an ancient fortress known as the 'castle of infidels' because its inhabitants adhered to different faiths—Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist—at the time of the Arab conquest,” said Susanne Gänsicke, senior conservator and head of antiquities conservation in the Department of Antiquities at the Getty Museum. “Dated to the fifth–sixth century CE, this Buddha is the westernmost example of its kind and is crucial for understanding Buddhism’s spread,” Gänsicke said in a commentary posted on the Getty website this year. The restoration of the Buddha head involves a number of complex processes, including the removal of materials used in previous restoration efforts, the cleaning and stabilization of fragile clay surfaces, and the use of 3D scanning, modeling, and printing to help reconstruct fragments.

Asian Film Festival

Central Asian Cinema Showcased at Asian Film Festival Barcelona

A young Kazakh couple who fake a terminal illness to raise money online are at the center of Sicko, one of several Central Asian films screened at this year's Asian Film Festival Barcelona. The festival, which concluded on November 1, also featured the award-winning Kyrgyz drama Kurak and other productions from across the region. Organized by the Spanish cultural institution Casa Asia, the festival ran from October 22 to November 1. Its program included more than 100 films from 25 countries across Asia and the Pacific. Although India was the main focus, organizers also highlighted Central Asian cinema, with productions from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The Kazakh satirical thriller Sicko (2025), directed by Aitore Zholdaskali, competed in the festival's official competition. Set in Almaty, the film follows the couple as their fundraising scam attracts far more attention than they anticipated. The film addresses the pressures of debt and shows how social media can turn public sympathy into a source of income. It made its international premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year. The second Kazakh film was Crickets, It's Your Turn, a Kazakhstan-France co-production directed by Olga Korotko. A young photographer named Merey is invited to a birthday party at a secluded house in the mountains outside Almaty. There, she encounters a group of men, and the gathering gradually descends into violence. The film had its world premiere at Switzerland's Locarno Film Festival in 2024, in the Cineasti del Presente section, which showcases emerging filmmakers. In Barcelona, it competed in the NETPAC section, named after the international Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema. The screening took place on October 30. Farz (2026), directed by Sarvar Karimov, was Uzbekistan's contribution. The film follows a man who sacrifices the money he has saved for a pilgrimage to Mecca to build a home for his late friend's family. It screened on October 27 in the festival's Special Section, having previously featured at the Kazan International Film Festival. Kyrgyzstan was represented by Kurak (2025), a drama directed by Erke Dzhumakmatova and Emil Atageldiev. The title refers to traditional Kyrgyz patchwork sewing, in which individual pieces of fabric are joined to create a single textile. The film similarly weaves together several stories. One woman is blackmailed by a law enforcement officer, while another seeks justice following the suicide of her 18-year-old daughter after she was drugged and raped. The dramatized scenes are interwoven with real testimonies from women. By the time it screened in Barcelona, Kurak had already won several international awards. In 2025, it received two awards at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea. In 2026, it won Best Film at the Dhaka International Film Festival in Bangladesh and received the international jury's Grand Prix, along with the critics' and high school jury awards, at the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas in France. Despite its success abroad, Kurak faced obstacles in Kyrgyzstan. The Times of Central Asia previously reported that Kurak had been denied a...

Pasture Management

Kyrgyzstan Pasture Restoration Plan Includes 7,200 Kilometers of Road Repairs

Kyrgyzstan plans to repair hundreds of bridges and more than 7,200 kilometers of roads to help livestock farmers reach remote grazing land as pastures near villages deteriorate. The Ministry of Water Resources, Agriculture and Processing Industry outlined the plans on October 29. It estimates that 184,000 hectares of pasture near settlements have been degraded and need restoration. To ease grazing pressure near villages, the ministry has identified a need to repair and restore 553 bridges and improve 7,206.3 kilometers of pasture access roads. It also plans to establish 406 livestock watering points and install 170 milk collection tanks. Plans to restore vegetation include reseeding pastures, controlling weeds unsuitable for livestock feed, and rotating grazing areas. Tractors would be used for sowing on flat terrain and specialized drones in areas that are difficult to reach. According to the ministry, pasture grass seeds were sown on 34,376.5 hectares of degraded land between 2023 and 2025. In September, it reported purchasing more than 186 metric tons of seeds for 50 million soms (about $570,000). Sowing was still underway in October. Kyrgyzstan already has a pasture development program for 2024–2029, approved in August 2024. It also calls for restoring degraded grazing land and improving pasture infrastructure. The latest announcement did not explain how the new plans differ from the existing program or specify their overall cost. In March 2025, the ministry said it had recommended annual restrictions on grazing near villages from April 15 to September 15. At the time, it estimated that 139,069 hectares had been degraded. It is unclear whether the higher figure in the latest announcement reflects further deterioration or a revised assessment. The ministry estimates the country’s total pasture area at about 10 million hectares. Pastures are the main source of livestock feed, so their deterioration affects feed availability and farmers’ incomes. Kyrgyzstan’s livestock numbers continued to rise in 2025, reaching approximately 1.8 million cattle and 6.3 million sheep and goats by the end of the year, increases of 1.7% and 0.8%, respectively, over 2024.