Two state-owned banks in Kyrgyzstan have ended partnerships with more than 130 companies due to sanctions risks, the Kyrgyz government said this week.
During a working meeting on sanctions policy, chaired by Bakyt Sydykov, minister of economy and commerce – and also recently appointed the Kyrgyz president’s special representative for sanctions policy – the government shared what it termed the “results of ongoing work.”
Two state-owned banks, Eldik Bank and ABank, have ended relationships with around 131 companies, and between them are in the process of investigating another 80 companies. These figures come mere weeks after Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Justice announced that it had ordered 50 companies registered locally in the country to close.
All of this follows the European Union’s 20th package of sanctions, adopted in late April, which aimed the EU’s “anti-circumvention” tool at Kyrgyzstan. The tool was framed as “an exceptional and last resort measure” to be employed against countries the EU deems to have taken insufficient steps to prevent the circumvention of sanctions on Russia, and Kyrgyzstan became the target of its first deployment. In practical terms, the tool allows the EU to “restrict the sale, supply, transfer or export of specified sanctioned goods and technology to certain third countries.”
