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Kommersant: "Kyrgyzstan joins queue for Russian loans"

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At a meeting of the EurAsEC Interstate Heads of Government Council on Friday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of talks on giving Kyrgyzstan a loan of up to $2 billion to support the local economy. This is a huge sum, over 60% of the country's GDP. In the same address, Mr Putin spoke about the "reserved funds" to support the Russian banking system - 9 trillion roubles, 20.5% of the 2008 GDP, according to estimates made in September. 4 trillion roubles (9% of the GDP) have already been allocated. Earlier, Russia offered a $1 million loan to Belarus (another million is promised for the beginning of 2009), and began talks with Iceland about a loan of 4 billion euros.

Vladimir Solovyov, Dmitry Butrin

Context

At a meeting of the EurAsEC Interstate Heads of Government Council on Friday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of talks on giving Kyrgyzstan a loan of up to $2 billion to support the local economy. This is a huge sum, over 60% of the country's GDP. In the same address, Mr Putin spoke about the "reserved funds" to support the Russian banking system - 9 trillion roubles, 20.5% of the 2008 GDP, according to estimates made in September. 4 trillion roubles (9% of the GDP) have already been allocated. Earlier, Russia offered a $1 million loan to Belarus (another million is promised for the beginning of 2009), and began talks with Iceland about a loan of 4 billion euros.

According to the Prime Minister, some $300 million are needed to support the Kyrgyz budget, and another $1.7 billion to realise big infrastructure projects, including the energy sphere. The same day, the board of directors of the International Monetary Fund approved offering a $100 million loan to Kyrgyzstan for 18 months. Kyrgyzstan comes after Malawi in receiving money under a new programme of the Fund directed to soften shocks for poor nations. Among the infrastructure projects are the Kambarata Power Plants 1 and 2, which Russian and Kazakh investors are highly interested in. The local opposition is asking the Kyrgyz Government to finish construction of the power plant system on the Naryn River without outside help.