OSCE-supported changes to legal regulations on private economic activity to save Kyrgyzstan businesses around 17 million EUR

The Kyrgyzstan Government’s Regulatory Reform Council reviewed on 8 June 2017 the third package of recommendations for improving the legal framework regulating private economic activity, developed under the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek’s project Systematic Analysis of Regulations (SAR).
The SAR is being implemented under the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Kyrgyzstan and the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek since March 2014 and is aimed at revamping the business environment and tackling corruption by removing unnecessary regulatory barriers to business as well as reducing the complexity of administrative procedures. The package contains recommendations on 251 legal norms. In particular, it proposes eliminating 47 provisions, further amending 67 and keeping in force the remaining 137. The project experts also presented an additional package of recommendations with respect to 225 administrative procedures.
Two previous packages were approved by the Council meeting earlier on July and December 2016. According to the experts, the implementation of the third package will result in approximately 4.6 million EUR savings for business. The implementation of all three packages of recommendations will allow businesses to reduce administrative costs by around 17 million EUR. In addition, implementation of recommendations will also contribute to improving Kyrgyzstan's position of Kyrgyzstan in the World Bank's "Doing Business" rating in order to attract investment in the country.
The Council meeting was chaired by Oleg Pankratov, the Vice-Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan. The OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek participated in the event along with government agencies and ministries, representatives of the business community and experts of the SAR project.
The full package of recommendations of the SAR project on the optimization of administrative procedures is available here: www.sar.kg.