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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kyrgyzstan
Index
In the first five years of independence, Kyrgyzstan's economy made more
progress in market-oriented reform legislation but less progress in
economic growth than the other four Central Asian states. This disparity
was largely because Kyrgyzstan lacked the diversified natural resources
and processing infrastructure that enable a national economy to survive
the shutdown of some sectors by shifting labor and other inputs to new
areas of production.
The economic system of Kyrgyzstan is undergoing a slow, painful, and
uncertain transition. Once a highly integrated provider of raw materials
for the centrally controlled economy of the Soviet Union, the republic's
economy is reorienting itself toward processing its own raw materials and
producing its own industrial products. During the late 1980s and early
1990s, however, industry accounted for only about one-third of the
country's net material product (NMP--see Glossary) while employing less
than one-fifth of the labor force. The primary emphasis of the economy
remained agriculture, which accounted for about 40 percent of NMP and
officially employed about one-third of the labor force. The transportation
and communications sector employed only about 3.2 percent of the labor
force in 1991. As in other Soviet republics, the vast majority of workers
were employed by the state, while most of the remainder worked on private
agricultural plots.
Data as of March 1996
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