The need for legislative incentives for the introduction and use of green technologies in Kyrgyzstan was discussed at a meeting organized by the International Business Council (IBC) on December 14, 2022.

Representatives of government agencies, business associations, the expert community and the media attended the meeting.

Environmentally friendly, green technologies are now being used all over the world. The global community is making major efforts to make the green economy an effective development model based on green technologies.

Kyrgyzstan also needs to introduce green technologies in order to preserve its ecosystems and biodiversity and at the same time ensure income growth. To develop green tech, it is very important to have legislative incentives, arising from established international practices. These can be tax and customs benefits, affordable financing – business should benefit from the use of green technologies.

“We conducted a brief analysis of the currently available legislative incentives, and also developed proposals for introducing other necessary incentives for the transition to the use of green technologies based on international practice. As part of the study, incentives were considered in such important sectors for Kyrgyzstan as subsoil use, agriculture and tourism,” said IBC head Askar Sydykov.

An analysis carried out by IBC experts showed that, according to preliminary estimates, the agricultural block contains six environmental incentives. There are also six incentives in the mining industry and one in tourism, although it only indirectly affects the industry – zeroing customs duties and abolishing taxes on the import of electric vehicles in country.

State regulation in our country should be based on global trends, the experts concluded. Building codes, functional zones and land use regimes do not take into account modern technologies focused on green activities.

For example, an analysis of legislation in tourism showed that there are no special tax incentives aimed at the activities of companies handling waste and secondary resources. Waste management is at best limited to voluntary initiatives such as separate collection and sorting.

In the management of household waste, it is recommended to use international experience on waste storage and collection of fees, Scotland - on the separation of waste at the places of generation (Russia), and on the transfer of management of wastewater treatment facilities to private companies with the participation of the municipality in the council (Great Britain and France).

Experts advise applying international experience in subsoil use and related industries including Canada's experience in glacier management and Chile's experience in developing social packages and sustainable management of deposits.

According to experts, the legislative regime for the use of land and water resources is restrictive. If the territories are designated as agricultural lands, then this restricts from any kind of activity on them. To improve the situation, it is recommended to use the experience of Georgia on permitted activities within the boundaries of agricultural land.

The agricultural industry as a whole, like tourism, is cross-sectoral, and its general approaches can be applied to all other sectors, the experts concluded.

However, 2022 can be called a year of change. Recently, the country adopted the main provisions and government programs aimed at developing a green economy and introducing legislative incentives. These are tax breaks, special requirements for the recreational areas of Issyk-Kul Lake, a number of measures to implement the Presidential Decree on declaring 2022 the Year of Protection of Mountain Ecosystems and Climate Resilience.

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