Market vendors across Kyrgyzstan protest new trading rules

01.12.2023, 16:05 exclusive.kz

Protests by market vendors are growing in Kyrgyzstan over new trading rules introduced as part of the government’s measures to reduce the national economy’s ‘shadow’ part. The protests started on Thursday in Bishkek at the Dordoy, Orto-Say and Madina markets. On Friday they spread to other Bishkek markets, as well those in southern Osh and northern Talas and Issyk-Kul regions, according to reports and social media posts. Under a new Tax Code market vendors are obliged to use cashier machines and electronic consignment notes and invoices. The changes came into force in January 2023. However, the government allowed a one-year grace period during which traders were not punished for failure to comply with the new rules. The grace period ends in January. Kyrgyz market vendors had already repeatedly protested the changes. Defending the new rules, Prime Minister Akylbek Japarov said in the past that they were needed to establish a fair taxation system and ensure transparency of the business sector. Japarov said those protesting the changes were acting against “the state as an institution, which is first of all based on collecting taxes”. He said that those behind the protests were “major suppliers of smuggled goods”. Japarov also said that if the government did not increase economic transparency and improve tax collection, the result would be more “bribes and kickbacks”, “shamefully” low wages and pensions, bad roads and a weak army. The government has, however, exempted two “strategic” markets from the new requirements — Dordoy, near Bishkek, and Turataly el Bazary in the town of Kara Suu on the Uzbek border — placing them under a “special” tax regime. Trade in consumer goods brought in from neighbouring China, legally and illegally, in small and big batches, makes up a significant part of Kyrgyzstan’s economy and provides a living to many families. According to official figures, in 2021 the shadow economy accounted for about 21 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s entire economy. The experts say its real share could be around 50 percent. Follow our Telegram and WhatsApp channels!