By Satina Aidar
On 26 June 2018, the Fergana website published my investigation unveiling corruption schemes behind Kyrgyzstan’s biggest infrastructure project, an alternative 433km road linking the capital Bishkek in the North with the country’s main city in the South, Osh. The project has been funded with a 850 million USD loan from the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China under the One Belt One Road Initiative, with the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) as the main implementing partner.
...
As the Chinese state prepares to pour trillions of USD into infrastructure projects in Asia, Europe and Africa, a policy paper by the Washington-based Center for Global Development warns of the possible insolvency of borrower countries if current lending practices continue. Kyrgyzstan is listed along with seven other countries of “particular concern”. Obviously, the paper argues, the fear is that in the long term “(d)omestic spending on infrastructure and social services may be sacrificed in order to service the debt, with the problem compounded when governments borrow additional funds just to meet debt servicing needs.”
Read the full article here.