Overview: Kyrgyzstan is one of the smallest and poorest states of the former Soviet Union. Its economy is heavily agricultural, producing cotton and tobacco on irrigated land in the south, grain in the foothills of the north, and sheep and goats on mountain pastures. Its small and obsolescent industrial sector, concentrated around Bishkek, is heavily dependent on Russia and other CIS countries for customers and for inputs, including most of its fuel. Since 1990, the economy has contracted by almost 40%. Kyrgyzstan's inflation was high in 1993, about 23% per month, but rates were declining at the end of the year. Kyrgyzstan introduced its national currency, the som, in May 1993, it has privatized 28% of its former state assets, and plans call for a massive voucher privatization in 1994. Although Kyrgyzstan will receive relatively large flows of foreign aid, ongoing economic restructuring will continue to be painful with an anticipated increase in unemployment as uneconomic enterprises close. President AKAYEV will be under strong political pressure to backtrack on some reform measures.

National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $11.3 billion (1993 estimate from the UN International Comparison Program, as extended to 1991 and published in the World Bank's World Development Report 1993; and as extrapolated to 1993 using official Kirghiz statistics, which are very uncertain because of major economic changes since 1990)

National product real growth rate: -13.4% (1993 est.)

National product per capita: $2,440 (1993 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 23% per month (1993 est.)

Unemployment rate: 0.2% includes officially registered unemployed; also large numbers of unregistered unemployed and underemployed workers

Budget:
revenues: $NA
expenditures: $NA, including capital expenditures of $NA

Exports: $100.4 million to countries outside the FSU (1993 est.)
commodities: wool, chemicals, cotton, ferrous and nonferrous metals, shoes, machinery, tobacco
partners: Russia 70%, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and others

Imports: $105.8 million from countries outside the FSU (1993 est.)
commodities: grain, lumber, industrial products, ferrous metals, fuel, machinery, textiles, footwear
partners: other CIS republics

External debt: $NA

Industrial production: growth rate -27% (1993 est.)

Electricity:
capacity: 4,100,000 kW
production: 11.8 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 2,551 kWh (1992)

Industries: small machinery, textiles, food-processing industries, cement, shoes, sawn logs, refrigerators, furniture, electric motors, gold, and rare earth metals

Agriculture: wool, tobacco, cotton, livestock (sheep, goats, cattle), vegetables, meat, grapes, fruits and berries, eggs, milk, potatoes

Illicit drugs: illicit cultivator of cannabis and opium poppy; mostly for CIS consumption; limited government eradication program; used as transshipment point for illicit drugs to Western Europe and North America from Central and Southwest Asia

Economic aid:
recipient: $80 million in 1993 and an anticipated $400 million in 1994

Currency: introduced national currency, the som (10 May 1993)
Exchange rates: NA

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Kyrgyzstan on this page is re-published from the 1995 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Kyrgyzstan Economy 1995 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Kyrgyzstan Economy 1995 should be addressed to the CIA.