Thursday, August 02, 2012 -
Foreign businesses which invest in Kyrgyzstan and construct factories in its impoverished regions will be tax-exempt for three to five years, Kyrgyz premier Omurbek Babanov said on Thursday at a trade meeting in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
Fifty-five percent of industrial enterprises were based in the Bishkek and Chui regions, Babanov said. Developing other regions of the country is imperative to cease internal migration, he added.
“For industry, we will grant preferences,” he said. “Those investors and entrepreneurs who intend to invest in the construction of industrial facilities will be exempt from taxes for three years.”
He also vowed that the state would help export-oriented industries with funding from the National Bank of Kygyzstan.
“The Bank of Kyrgyzstan has already been created,” he said. “The funds to be accumulated in it, will be sent to export-oriented industries.”
Babanov, a member of the pro-business Respublika party, has made it his administration’s priority to improve Kyrgyzstan’s investment climate, much damaged following the 2010 ethnic riots in the south of the country.
The country’s industrial sector has lain largely dormant since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, as it imported most of the raw materials from other Soviet states.