Kyrgyz Government reports economic growth

Kyrgyzstan’s economy grew 2.7 percent in January-October 2016, Economy Minister Arzybek Kojoshev said at the Kyrgyz Government meeting on November 28, the Economy Ministry press service said.

According to the minister, the country’s GDP in the first ten months of the year amounted to 359.9 billion soms and grew 2.7 percent compared to 5.5-percent growth in the same period last year.

Inflation increased by 0.6 percent on-year.

Growth was recorded in almost all sectors of the economy, except for industry which saw a 0.6-percent decline. Growth in agriculture was 2.2 percent, in the services sector 3.2 percent, and in construction 7.6 percent.

The minister named the following factors that contributed to economic growth:

- a 19.6-percent increase in money remittances to Kyrgyzstan by Kyrgyz citizens working abroad, which amounted to US $1.206 billion in January-September 2016 (compared to $1.008 billion in the same period last year);

- a 7.3-percent on-year increase in gold prices (Kyrgyzstan earns much of its state budget revenues by exporting gold produced by the Kumtor gold mine);

- creation of favorable conditions for doing business by reducing the number of business checkups and licenses, and other state regulatory measures;

- provision of concessional loans to farmers;

- a slowdown of food prices growth;

- a 15.3-percent on-year growth of consumer loans in January-September 2016;

- strengthening of the national currency to the US dollar by 9.5 percent and to currencies of Eurasian Economic Union member states by 4.7 percent (as of 31 October 2016).