Kyrgyzstan has managed to shed its status as the EAEU's debt underdog

In recent years, Kyrgyzstan has significantly improved its external debt-to-GDP ratio. While the country’s external debt exceeded its gross domestic product in 2010, by 2025 this ratio had fallen by nearly half.

According to data on the dynamics of external debt among EAEU countries, in 2010, Kyrgyzstan’s liabilities to creditors amounted to 102.3% of GDP. This was the highest figure among the Union’s member states.

However, by 2025, the ratio had fallen to 55%, marking one of the most notable improvements in the region.

In fact, over 15 years, Kyrgyzstan has reduced the debt burden on its economy by more than 47 percentage points.

One of the reasons for this improvement was the country’s rapid economic growth. While Kyrgyzstan’s GDP stood at 782.9 billion KGS in 2021, by 2025 it had grown more than 2.5-fold—to 1.98 trillion KGS.

For comparison:

• in Kazakhstan, the external debt-to-GDP ratio fell from 79.9% to 59.4%;
• in Armenia—from 68.1% to 64.8%;
• in Belarus—from 49.9% to 41.1%;
• in Russia—from 32% to 12.5%.

Although Kyrgyzstan’s external debt-to-GDP ratio remains higher than that of Russia and Belarus, the republic no longer appears to be the EAEU’s debt outsider, as it was in the early 2010s.