Perspectives of the financial market development in Kyrgyzstan and the socio-economic situation in the country
Round table transcript
On 13 September 2007 the Institute for Public Policy hosted a round table discussion on "Perspectives of the financial market development in Kyrgyzstan and the socio-economic situation in the country". Participants of the round table discussed the perspectives and problems of the banking system in Kyrgyzstan, securities, safety and stock markets.
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Muratbek Imanaliev, President of the Institute for Public Policy: Parliament has started its activities by condemning the government for cereal, sugar and other crises. There are serious problems beyond Kyrgyzstan as well. Some very difficult problems are emerging in Northern America, in Europe and Asia, and of course, all this makes us feel some trepidation. We understand that some external problems can contribute to the existing problems of our country. I remember very well in 1998 on August 17, when there was a default in Russia, discussed here in Kyrgyzstan, and some officials said that Kyrgyzstan was enjoying a highly dynamic economic development and decent banking sector. In general there should not be the threat of crisis; nevertheless in October, as we all know, a crisis happened.
Sultan Mederov, Consultant of the President, "Marka-audit" company: We have only points of view because we do not have a united systematic financial market in Kyrgyzstan. There are certain legal instruments for the National bank, and not many instruments for the government, there is not much freedom. Especially in recent days when the government has turned into the victim, parliament does not give an opportunity to the government to step right or left. The situation gets worse when the government does not have any possibility to regulate the financial market.
Maksat Ishenbaev, Expert on economic issues: I think there is no well developed or well organized financial market. That point is far off. From the beginning, there was a lack of political will, and in both Russia Kazakhstan the stock market was developed due to massive privatization, not partial like here. The best pieces were given to those closest, etc. In other words, if right after receiving independence we did the same things as in Russia and Kazakhstan, perhaps there would not have been such problems with developing the stock market and attracting capital flows. Further, we started working on reforms well. We started to make pension reforms first, but then there was not enough political will. We did not complete it, stopped at the initial stage, and now we need to deal with all this, and still need to accomplish it. For example, there is this situation with prices. We clearly understood before that our National bank does not possess enough resources or instruments; there are some, but they are not functional in the markets. There is no trans-investment mechanism, unfortunately, in our country. I absolutely agree with Ulan Sarbanov on the point that there is a crisis in minds and lack of good specialists.
Nurbek Elebaev, Executive Director of the Financial-Consulting company: There is an impression that there is no financial market. First of all, this is because the component parts of the market in its classical understanding are credit, currency and stock markets. All these exist but are separate from each other, and in general, the financial market as the complex for interaction of all these markets is absent. Above all, the main problem of this process is that there is no such system-creating and system-organizing role, which perhaps should be played by the government and National bank. Unfortunately, the National bank functions in its way, the government in its own way.
Gulzina Isakova, Head of the Monetary and Credit Operations department, National Bank of the KR: Nowadays, our financial system does not have such mechanisms of bank capital attraction as proven in global practice. It can be seen in the very low level of financial intermediation, i.e. the share of credits to the real sector of the Kyrgyz Republic is only 15%. Moreover, the share of credits, if one looks at the structure of the economy, is mainly occupied by trade, the means of which are directed to importing products of great demand. In the structure of investment, the investment costs of Kyrgyz enterprises are mainly one's own funds. The large part of capital comes from export-oriented enterprises for raw materials development, which have enough internal assets to satisfy the investment demands independently. The majority of Kyrgyz enterprises need external sources of financing. The market of corporate shares and bonds is almost absent; the absence of institutes for elective investment contributes to the low effectiveness of the financial markets. We see our role mostly in developing the money market, since the activization of the bank system's function of intermediation in distributing attracted financial resources into the real sector presupposes the presence of an active money market. The activity of the money market is secured by developed infrastructure, safe and functional systems of accounts and well-established overflow channels between sectors. Along with an opportunity to regulate the current liquidity of other participants, the money market will promote, or more precisely, should promote the formation of uniform money price and define the criteria for uniform structures of interest rates and profitability. The conditions for the active operation of the money market are reliability, parity of banks and other financial mediators, as well as widening the range of financial instruments.
Ulan Sarbanov, Expert on economic issues: The authorities do not own the economic status, and neither does the national bank. The government is not even always informed. This is an issue for discussion. How much do the government and the National bank, and the authorities in general, keep tabs on the situation, how well can they manage the situation, and what can be offered involving fewer external factors in defining the case?
The financial market has certain segments, for example, the securities market. In principle, only two segments have a formal perspective for development: government debt securities and government corporate securities. The simple question is what to do? It was previously proposed to the government to make necessary, even by force, one simple thing that could have serious consequences, - to unify the names of the securities. It is necessary to unify the names, so that people know that the securities are characterized by the maturity date, interest and profit. It is feasible to realize this.
As for the increasing crisis in the socio-economic situation in the country, there is criticism addressed to the government, to international organizations, to the Central Bank. The concept of the balance of payment is under the supervision of the Central Bank and National Statistics Committee. According to the results of last year, the deficit of the current balance is 16.75. It is being reconsidered, but here it is about 16-17%. I would like to recall that during the times when we were collecting credits quickly and plunged into the debt hole, the deficit of the running account fluctuated between 13 and 19%. Now we are discussing the HIPC while realizing the problem that could emerge in two years. From the macroeconomic viewpoint its scary. It is discussed officially that we have more import than export, but it is not mentioned that the rate of import is significantly taking over the rate of export. The components of import, in particular the investment component, are not discussed.
And the last recommendation to the government is to start real estate reforms. It is a principal issue: to deal with real estate for one reason - demand and supply. The demand is clear, but the supply is not addressed. Everything can be addressed quickly, strongly or mildly, but no one in any way addresses the supply. The government supply of agricultural products, when they deal with it, will be seen in 2-3 years in the best case. This problem should be addressed as soon as possible, and the question here is the commodity component of the market. It will go up rapidly.