By Erica Marat (2/7/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Although the HIPC’s main goal is to write off part of Kyrgyzstan’s external debt and reform economic and administrative sectors, the initiative has turned into a matter of international cooperation preferences and domestic disputes over the national identity.

On the international level, the initiative is potentially harmful to Kyrgyzstan’s relations with Russia. According to Andrey Grozin, representative of the Moscow Institute of the Commonwealth Independent States (CIS), the HIPC is against Russia’s interests.

By Benjamin Abner (2/7/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Muruntau mine, one of the largest open pit gold mines in the world, lies 250 miles west of Tashkent, near the city of Zarafshan. Under excavation by the Soviet Union since 1969, Newmont Mining Corporation’s involvement began in 1990 when a Newmont geologist joined the first group of Western experts to visit the mine. Newmont was the first overseas company to enter into a joint venture in any part of the Former Soviet Union when it signed an agreement with Uzbekistan in February 1992.

By Bakhtiyor Naimov (1/24/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Four-room apartments are worth as much as US$ 400,000. Given that an average monthly salary in Tajikistan equals US$ 110 and GDP per capita, according to the National Bank of Tajikistan, is US$ 330 per month, elite apartments seem alien to Tajikistan’s realities. The period during the civil war and immediately after the signing of the peace accord, when one could buy an apartment in the center of Dushanbe for as little as US$ 1500, is long passed.