Economic Reforms in Kyrgyzstan

This article describes Kyrgyzstans achievements in the stabilization and liberalization of the economy and the majority of progress in this area that occurred in the first half of 1994. One may include Kyrgyzstan in the group of states that have adopted the radical variant of transition to market economics, a group to which the majority of Central European states and the above mentioned Baltic states belong. Kyrgyzstan has become a clear leader in economic transformation in Central Asia. Moreover, the progress in this area has been accompanied by a broad democratization of political life and an open, pro-Western orientation in foreign policy. These economic and political reforms represent the effect of the political course embarked upon in 1991 by the president of the republic, Askar Akayev. Thus far, they have made Kyrgyzstan an oasis of democracy and social peace in a region wracked by powerful ethnic and religious conflicts and whose political and economic regimes are of a significantly less liberal and democratic character and possess strong elements of the post-communist or even neo-communist order.