Kyrgyzstan trades with countries of the world in compliance with all international rules. Minister of Economy and Commerce Daniyar Amangeldiyev said this in an interview with Azattyk, commenting on the recent visit to Kyrgyzstan by EU Special Representative for Sanctions David O’Sullivan.
He said that representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers had already held a meeting with O’Sullivan. According to him, European officials “asked some questions and warned about the risks.”
However, according to Amangeldiev, Kyrgyzstan’s trade with other countries began to grow even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from 2021. According to him, this was influenced to a greater extent by the decrease in shadow trade.
“But [также] we must admit that exports have also increased. And for the most part, these are consumer goods. We said that according to the rules of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of the WTO, in the case when a state is going to introduce some restrictions to ensure its security, it must explain why this is being done and what is the danger. We told the EU representatives that we were ready to share our statistics with them, but we voiced the demand that then they should also provide us with this list. […] what products fall under indirect sanctions, and what goes as consumer goods. We cannot let our economy suffer because of this conflict. After all, we trade not only with Russia, our trade turnover is also growing with a number of European countries,” he said.
However, Amangeldiev noted that Kyrgyzstan cannot guarantee that some goods subject to Western sanctions do not go to Russia through the country.
“And we discussed this issue at the last meeting. For example, there is a list of washing machines manufactured in Europe, Korea and Japan. At the same time, there is no list of such goods, if they are imported from China. Or it is necessary then to introduce a complete ban on the import of washing machines. Or it is necessary to impose sanctions depending on the types of computers. It should not be such that it is impossible to import all computers. There is competition here: if one country imposes restrictions, then the other will seek to benefit,” he says.
The Minister noted that Kyrgyzstan has a law that regulates the trade in dual-use goods, which are used both in everyday life and in the military industry.
«[Этот закон] works very well. Our list of those very goods corresponds to the international one. We control based on it. There is a clear procedure for filling out documents for the export or export of these goods. They are seen by Western and all other partner countries that are parties to the aforementioned agreement. You don’t have to worry about this. We explained to the representatives of the European Union that our list is the same [с международным]”, – concluded Amangeldiev.
On March 24, the British edition of The Telegraph, citing a confidential document, reported that the European Union could impose trade restrictions against countries that re-export goods with “dual-use” technologies to Russia. We are talking mainly about the supply of washing machines, used cars and cameras.
In the West, they fear that these and other goods are being taken apart, and Russia will use the resulting components to repair tanks, armored vehicles and drones, for further use in the war against Ukraine.
Among the countries that are in the focus of attention of European officials, according to The Telegraph, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
After that, on March 28, EU Special Representative for Sanctions David O’Sullivan arrived in Kyrgyzstan and spoke at a press conference. He recalled that now unprecedented sanctions have been imposed on Russia due to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and called on countries that did not support Western sanctions against the Russian Federation not to become a platform for Russia to bypass them.
According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Kyrgyzstan has earned 36 billion soms on re-export to Russia over the past year.
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