Kyrgyzstan’s GDP in 2019 grows by 4.5% against forecast of 4%

Bishkek, Jan.21, 2020. /Kabar/. At the end of January-December 2019, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Kyrgyzstan in real terms increased by 4.5% (against the forecast of 4.0%), the Government’s press service said Monday.

The GDP growth is provided by all sectors of the economy: the growth is observed in the construction industry - 10.6%, in agriculture - 2.6%, in services - 2.9%, in industry - 6.9%.

The nominal GDP volume made KGS 590 million.

These are preliminary data, which, as a rule, tend to increase when adjusted.

The volume of industrial production amounted to more than KGS 278.6 billion, having increased by more than KGS 21 million, compared to 2018.

This growth was achieved due to the growth of industrial production of metal ores, basic metals, construction materials, clothing, extraction of crude oil, natural gas and coal, as well as food production.

The foreign trade turnover for 11 months of 2019 amounted to USD 6.2 billion. Imports decreased by 6.6%. One of the factors of the decrease is decline in re-exports of goods.

For example, imports of clothing and apparel decreased by 1.8 times, while exports decreased by 1.5 times. At the same time, clothing production increased by more than 18%, which indicates a significant reduction in re-exports of these goods, as well as some import substitution of these goods in the country.

In the industrial sector there is also a significant import substitution in other goods such as textiles, leather goods, cement.

For the first 11 months of 2019, export volumes increased by 9.4%. This growth is due to higher export volumes of gold, ores and concentrates of precious metals, cement, ceramic products, fertilizers, fruits and nuts, vegetables and root vegetables, meat and meat co-products.

In connection with the above, the trade deficit decreased by USD 465 million. This is a positive figure.

The inflow of remittances for 11 months of 2019 amounted to almost USD 2.2 billion and decreased by USD 287 million (or 11.6%) compared to the same period last year. This is mainly due to the introduction of a limit on remittances in the Russian Federation in April 2019 (limit of RUB 100,000 per month).

According to the results of 9 months of 2019, the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) amounted to USD 576.8 million, and increased by more than 67% compared to the same period of 2018. Such a significant growth was mainly achieved due to the increase in inflow of direct foreign investments in the sphere for professional, scientific and technical activities (geological exploration) by 3.3 times, as well as in manufacturing industry by 2.3 times and other sectors.

The inflow exceeded the outflow level by USD 63.3 million (by USD 16.8 million in January-September 2018).