Tag Archives: Kyrgyzstan

Coronavirus undermines region’s projected growth

ALMATY/April 5 (The Bulletin) — The coronavirus will undermine what had looked like a strong year of economic growth in 2020 and instead knock the Central Asia and South Caucasus region into a recession.

Of the six countries in the region that have declared states-of-emergencies and infections of the coronavirus, only Kazakhstan has officially said that its economy will shrink in 2020 but analysts expect others to follow.

Kazakh economy minister Ruslan Dalenov said on April 2 that the combined impact of the coronavirus and a fall in oil prices mean that Kazakhstan’s economy will shrink by 0.9% in 2020.

Oil is Kazakhstan’s main export and with prices dropping by 40% to around $35/barrel because of a price war and a drop in demand triggered by the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Mr Dalenov said oil exports would fall.

“A decrease is also expected compared to previously approved growth rates in the manufacturing industry, agriculture, construction and the services sector, including trade,” he said.

Kazakhstan had previously predicted GDP growth of 4.5% for 2020. It last went into a recession in 2016 after a previous oil price collapse.

In Armenia, the Central Bank is still predicting GDP growth this year but only of 0.7%, down from an earlier prediction of 7.6%.

Other countries have held off giving predictions on the economic cost of the spread of the coronavirus although they have all said that their original growth estimates are likely to be heavily reduced.

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

COMMENT: Kyrgyz authorities have failed to protect people

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APRIL 5 (The Bulletin) — The authorities in Kyrgyzstan have failed in their first duty to protect the country’s people.

In January, the coronavirus began to spread across the world. It changed from being a China-centric epidemic to being a pandemic. Here in Kyrgyzstan, the authorities closed land borders with China and quarantined people arriving from Iran and Korea, both at the time heavily infected countries, to block the coronavirus. But they ignored other places.

And this gave Kyrgyzstan its Achilles Heel.

As a result, the first cases of infection in Kyrgyzstan with the coronavirus were returnees from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India. They were either pilgrims who made the Hajj to Mecca or followers of the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic movement. These people had constantly been in crowded places and had a wide circle of contacts, including with foreigners.

The authorities did not consider that these were very religious people who were in no hurry to follow the instructions of the secular authorities regarding self-isolation. Most of them turned out to be poorly educated people living in rural areas of south Kyrgyzstan. They simply did not believe in a global pandemic and did not take any precautions. It is possible that the religious President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, with consultation with the Muslim clergy in Kyrgyzstan, did not want to impose harsh quarantine measures against these people.

Another flagrant incompetence of the authorities was that Kyrgyz industry did not speed up the production of necessary goods, antiseptics for hands, medical masks and other protective agents against viral infections. Kyrgyzstan has a developed sewing industry which could have started the production of masks in advance of the arrival of the coronavirus inside our borders. This would have covered the shortage of this important product not only in the Kyrgyz Republic, but also helped other countries.

Alcohol factories, having large volumes of alcohol, could also be rebuilt to produce hand sanitisers.

The government has now imposed strict quarantine measures but the authorities have not worked out mechanisms for issuing special permits for employees of strategic enterprises. Flour mills have been forced to the brink of closure because their workers could not get past roadblocks to work. Only media hype and the prospect of bread shortages forced the government to step in and push for the flour factories to stay open.

If we are to get through this, the Kyrgyz government needs to up its game.

>> Evgeny Pogrebnyak is a journalist based in south Kyrgyzstan

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz pilgrims blamed for spreading the coronavirus

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JALA-ABAD,Kyrgyzstan/April 5 (The Bulletin) — Resentment is building in south Kyrgyzstan towards groups of pious Muslims who are accused of bringing the coronavirus into the country.

Officials have said that in mid-March infected pilgrims returning from the Hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia and members of the Tablighi Jamaat religious organisation, who had visited Pakistan and India, ignored orders to self-isolate. Instead they celebrated their return with a series of feasts, spreading the coronavirus.

South Kyrgyzstan is now the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in the country. More than half of Kyrgyzstan’s 149 coronavirus infections are in the region and in the small town of Nookat, south of Osh, where many of the pilgrims lived, two people have died with the COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus. A strict lockdown has been imposed on Osh and Jala-Abad, the region’s two main cities, and the villages that orbit them. Bishkek has also been placed under a lockdown.

Anastasia, a resident of the village of Blagoveshchenka near Jala-Abad, said that she has been unable to work as a shop cashier since the lockdown was imposed.

“People are very angry at the pilgrims who brought this infection to us,” she said. “Now, like everyone, I just have to sit at home and probably have to get into debt.”

Since the state-of-emergency was announced, the streets of Osh and Jala-Abad have emptied. A Bulletin correspondent said that these rules are being tightened every day and that a person on the street without official permission and a passport can now be arrested.

Some people are not merely frustrated with the pilgrims for bringing the coronavirus into Kyrgyzstan, they are also suspicious of the authorities’ motives for the harsh lockdown.

Bolotbek, works as an IT specialist in a state institution in Jalal-Abad, and lives in the village of Bazar-Korgon, 30km from the city. He said that he has been placed on unpaid leave.

“I see it as an attempt to strengthen control over people, following the example of China,” he said. “Of course, the epidemic must be fought, but not by the same harsh measures. Soon people will begin to starve if they do not lift quarantine.”

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

IMF agrees to give Kyrgyzstan a loan of $120m to deal with the coronavirus

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MARCH 27 (The Bulletin) — The IMF responded to Kyrgyzstan’s pleas for aid by agreeing a loan of $120m to help its economy survive the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Kyrgyz Pres. Sooronbai Jeenbekov said in an open letter to the IMF that without a loan, the country would struggle to recover from the economic hit.

The Kyrgyz som lost 16% of its value against the US dollar highlighting the economic impact that the country was already taking.

The Central Bank had been expected to increase its key interest rate to try to dampen anticipated rising inflation but instead it decided to keep rates at 5% (March 31).

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyzstan reports 44 cases of the coronavirus, mainly in the south

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MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyz health officials had reported 44 cases of the coronavirus by March 26. Most of these are located in Osh and Jala-Abad, in the south of the country. Officials said that the infection was brought in by people returning from being on a Hajj. The south of Kyrgyzstan is generally considered more pious than the north as it has a greater proportion of ethnic Uzbeks living there.

Kyrgyzstan has placed its main cities, Bishkek and Osh under a lockdown.

Osh city hall has offered counselling in three languages — Kyrgyz, Russian and Uzbek — by phone for people affected by the coronavirus.

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— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

COMMENT: Governments will be judged on how they deal with the coronavirus

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MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — With the global impact and disruption of Covid-19 becoming apparent, it is time to see what the governments of Central Asia and the South Caucasus are made of. Their responses now will forge their reputations. They will be judged.

And, so far, reactions have been wildly different.

Turkmenistan and Tajikistan appear to be pretending that the Covid-19 pandemic is not happening. Neither country has reported cases and in Tajikistan people are being encouraged to continue with their lives as normal. Last weekend thousands of people gathered to celebrate the Persian New Year and President Emomali Rakhmon has barely broken with his official engagements. In Ashgabat, President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has talked up herbal remedies to the pandemic.

Berdymukhamedov and Rakhmon may be the Central Asian versions of Nero. While Rome burnt for a week in 64AD, Emperor Nero fiddled, or at least that is the popular perception.

Elsewhere the reaction of governments to the Covid-19 pandemic has been more mainstream. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Armenia have all ordered lockdowns over their main cities and announced economic packages that will support business. Kyrgyzstan has applied to the IMF to help dampen its own Covid-19 epidemic which appears linked to people in the more religious and conservative south of the country returning home from the Hajj in Saudi Arabia.

In Azerbaijan, the approach has veered away from the orthodoxy, as it often does. Instead of offering the government grants and loans favoured by other countries to keep business running and to buy extra supplies and resources for its health service, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev set up a special fund that would accept donations from companies, government agencies and the wealthy.

Never one to miss an opportunity to self-promote, top billing on the website currently goes to Aliyev and his wife, Mehriban, who is also the vice-president, for donating their salaries for 2020 to the fund. The website doesn’t say how large these donations were.

Covid-19 will shrink growth rates and possibly even economies across the region. The people of Central Asia and the South Caucasus are used to big, interventionist and, some would say, authoritarian government. Now these leaders have the opportunity to show their people that this power can be used to good effect in a national emergency.

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— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Coronavirus spreads through Central Asia and South Caucasus

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YEREVAN/March 26 (The Bulletin) — The Covid-19 virus started to take a grip of the Central Asia and South Caucasus region with only Tajikistan and Turkmenistan not reporting any outbreaks.

Worst hit, by some margin, has been Armenia with 290 cases reported by March 26. Officials said that the source of the outbreak was a sewing factory in Yerevan and people arriving from Iran, which has had one of the worst outbreaks in the world.

From sounding blase about the impact of the coronavirus only two weeks ago, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan has now ordered a lockdown along the same lines as European countries, which is hitting businesses.

“Let’s look at the upcoming week as a unique opportunity to read, self-reflect and plan the future of the Armenian nation,” he said.

Neighbouring Georgia and Azerbaijan have also reported cases of the coronavirus, 77 cases and 80 cases each, but have taken different approaches to dealing with it. The Georgian government has imposed a lockdown in Tbilisi but in Azerbaijan the rules are more relaxed.

In Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have imposed lockdowns over their largest cities to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus, although Turkmen and Tajik officials have insisted, much to the amazement of many analysts, that they haven’t had any cases.

On March 21, Tajik towns hosted the traditional celebrations to mark the Persian new year Nowruz festival and Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has talked up the medicinal benefits of various herbs against the coronavirus.

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— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyzstan bans export of foodstuffs

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MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — In Kyrgyzstan, the government on March 23 also banned the export of most foodstuffs. Three of the countries main cities — Bishkek, Osh and Jala-Abad — are in lockdown to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Like much of the rest of the region, Kyrgyzstan has closed down air links, in and out of the country, to deal with the coronavirus.

The Kyrgyz government has not laid out any financial aid of its own for businesses to deal with the economic fallout of the coronavirus but it has made an official request to the IMF for help.

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— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Police in Bishkek disperse protesters with teargas

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MARCH 2 2020 (The Bulletin) — Armed police used teargas to disperse an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 demonstrators in central Bishkek who were protesting against the continued imprisonment of Sadyr Zhaparov, an adviser to ex-president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. He was sent to prison in 2017 for taking a government official hostage. The two sides did not fight but it was a reminder of how unstable street-level politics in Kyrgyzstan can be.
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— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Appeal of Uzbek human rights activist begins in Kyrgyzstan

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FEB. 25 2020 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court started hearing the appeal against a life prison sentence given to Uzbek human rights defender Azimjan Askarov. He was originally arrested in 2010, in the aftermath of ethnic violence in Osh that killed 450 people, mainly Uzbeks, and was accused of stirring ethnic tension. The US has criticised the Kyrgyz government for arresting and imprisoning Askarov.
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— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin