Exports to Russia more than doubled, imports from next-door China almost tripled, and a whole range of products that Kyrgyzstan was not known for exporting in the past were sent abroad.
And that is just what can be gleaned from the often incomplete official data.
The year that Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and became the target of extensive Western-led sanctions turned out to be a strange one for Kyrgyzstan’s external trade.
That is in no small part due to an apparent spike in reexporting — the process of exporting imported goods to third countries, typically with minimal delay.
Historically this type of trade has benefited countries suffering under the weight of international sanctions, and this time is no different, according to Temir Shabdanaliev, head of the Association of Carriers and Logisticians of the Kyrgyz Republic lobbying group.
“If goods from Europe were previously sent to Russia, now they are registered as deliveries to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. But as soon as they are unloaded here they are immediately taken to Russia,” Shabdanaliev told RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service.
And although reexports have been an important source of income for Kyrgyz businesses in the past, Shabdanaliev is one of a number of business leaders voicing fears that his country — a member of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EES) — could be targeted with secondary sanctions if it isn’t careful.
“Russia forced us into this union…. There is a risk here, and no one knows how it will turn out. If this is uncovered and can be proved, Kyrgyzstan could have a hard time,” Shabdanaliev said.
From Ukraine To Russia Via Georgia And Kazakhstan?
Recently released Kyrgyz trade data showed that Russian-Kyrgyz trade grew strongly in 2022, with Kyrgyzstan’s exports to Russia growing by 2.5 times and Moscow positioned as Kyrgyzstan’s No. 1 trade partner.
A lot of this growth is in categories that have traditionally dominated Kyrgyz exports, such as textiles.
But the sixfold rise in that category for 2022 can hardly be considered normal and may partly explain the spike in imports from China, which is Kyrgyzstan’s top supplier of both raw and finished textile products.
Other products reaching Russia from Kyrgyzstan by the ton in 2022 were not exported at all in 2021 — among them shampoo, toothpicks, soap, and car parts.
Kyrgyzstan’s official trade data rarely provides a full picture.
One discrepancy regularly noted by government critics is the gulf between figures shown in Chinese customs data and Kyrgyz data on trade with its neighbor.
Chinese customs stats for 2021 showed trade with Kyrgyzstan — almost completely dominated by Chinese exports — at an all-time high of $7.5 billion.
The Kyrgyz figure was just over one-sixth of that.
Source: RFERL