Profit at someone else's expense? The sector owes foreign creditors more than 66 billion KGS

The total debt of Kyrgyz enterprises on loans and borrowings in the mining sector reached 87 billion 485.1 million KGS as of October 1. This is one of the most capital-intensive sectors of the economy, where a significant part of projects is financed by bank loans and external borrowings.

Of the total amount of liabilities, 21.1 billion KGS are loans from Kyrgyz financial institutions. Among the sub-sectors of the extractive sector, the loan debt is distributed as follows:

• metal ore mining — 71.26 billion KGS;
• crude oil and natural gas extraction — 11.18 billion KGS;
• coal and lignite mining — 4.25 billion KGS;
• mining of other minerals — 747.29 million KGS;
• mining services — 44.92 million KGS.

The highest debt burden is observed in the metal ores sub-sector. Debt to countries outside the CIS amounts to 58.35 billion KGS. This highlights the scale of foreign creditors' participation in mining projects, primarily related to the extraction of gold and non-ferrous metals.

Russia and Kazakhstan are the leading creditors among the CIS countries. Their participation is divided between coal and ore mining, but the volumes of different categories of loans vary significantly.

• Russia provided 1.37 billion KGS for the extraction of hard coal and lignite, while Kazakhstan provided 38.79 million KGS.
• Russia invested 610.17 million KGS in metal ore mining, while Kazakhstan invested 50.44 million KGS.

At the same time, the bulk of loans to the sector come from countries outside the CIS — 64.27 billion KGS, of which the overwhelming majority is directed specifically to metal ore mining.