Kyrgyzstan imported 3.1 times more cars in 2022 than in 2021. Last year, 41 200 cars worth $538.6 million were imported to Kyrgyzstan, while 13 100 were imported in 2021. The record growth of 4.3 times continued in 2023: in the first 4 months of 2023, 41 000 cars worth $483.5 million were imported into Kyrgyzstan. For comparison, in 2022 this figure was 9 500.
According to the data of the National Statistical Committee of Kyrgyzstan, South Korea occupied the leading position in terms of the number of foreign cars imported to Kyrgyzstan - in the first four months of 2023, Kyrgyzstanis imported 12 300 cars (about 1 700 cars more than in the whole of 2022). The USA (9 200), Japan (4 500), Russia (4 000) and China (3 500) also entered the top five auto-exporting countries in Kyrgyzstan, pushing Georgia and Germany aside, reports the Economist.kg portal.
Deliveries of cars to Russia and Kazakhstan from Kyrgyzstan increased 11 times - in four months of 2023, Kazakhstanis and Russians bought 2712 cars in the car markets of Kyrgyzstan, while in January-April 2022 only 244 cars were bought, the general director of the largest in Kyrgyzstan of the automobile resource Mashina.kg Tilek Yeshenaliev
“Because of the sanctions, the import of cars to Russia is closed. As a result, the traffic to our website has recently increased. There are keywords for which people come to our site. And by the keyword "cars from Kyrgyzstan" more people began to come to us. Who except the Russians will make such a request? This is how cars are imported to Kyrgyzstan, then further sold to Russia. Kyrgyzstan has become a transit country,” Yeshenaliev believes.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
July 7, 2023