OSCE supports efforts to improve business environment in Kyrgyzstan
The first meeting of the Regulatory Reform Council, in Kyrgyzstan was opened on 9 April 2015 in Bishkek by Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Valery Dil, Minister of Economy Temir Sariev, and the Head of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, Ambassador Sergey Kapinos. The aim of the event was to give a boost to the economic reform process in the country to stimulate growth and reduce corruption.
The Regulatory Reform Council, chaired by Kyrgyz Prime Minister, Djoomart Otorbaev, was set up last month, to oversee recommendations for proposed legislative reform.
Members of the Regulatory Reform Council and representatives of 34 government agencies involved in the project participated in the meeting. They discussed implementation of the government decree on regulatory reform and approved the 2015 action plan.
“The National Strategy for Sustainable Development and the Degree of the President to eliminate corruption tasked the Kyrgyz Government to reduce the administrative and regulatory burden through the ‘guillotine principle,’” said Dil in his opening speech.
The legislative reform is a joint project between the OSCE Centre in Bishkek and the Kyrgyz Economy Ministry based on a Memorandum of Understanding signed in March 2014, he added.
Ambassador Kapinos said: “This project is one of the most important and priority projects of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, as it is aimed at formation of sustainable foundation for a stable and democratic development of the country through a radical improvement of the investment climate, creating favourable conditions for domestic and foreign investors and the creation of sustainable preconditions for accelerated socio-economic development.”
Kyrgyzstan currently has more than 15,000 laws regulating business activity and many of them are outdated or inconsistent with existing legislation. They are considered the major obstacle to business development and foreign investment. A group of local and international experts will prepare a comprehensive regulatory review of the existing laws and provide recommendations on how to improve them.
The regulatory reform project is part of the economic and environment activities of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek, and was launched last November upon request of the Kyrgyz Government.