Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov has published appeal to the partner countries and international financial institutions on his social media page.
"We see the smog problem has become one of the relevant issues in Kyrgyzstan for the last several years. It becomes particularly critical in autumn and winter, since coal burning contributes to the given problem," the President said.
AKIpress cites Japarov as saying that resolution of this problem requires a comprehensive approach.
According to Japarov, Kyrgyzstan has abundant hydropower resources, but could not build new hydropower plants after the country gained independence and has to import electricity in winter time. The country uses just 10% of its hydropower potential now, the president said.
"Construction of small and medium-sized hydropower plants has started in the country for the last 2 years at my instruction. The respective regulations were adopted to provide preferences to investors. Construction of the Kambar-Ata-1 HPP, prospective flagship of national economy, has started. Implementation of these projects will bring energy security to Kyrgyzstan, which will be able to export electricity to foreign countries," said Japarov. “We have taken a course towards development of a green economy. For this reason I gave the task to work on exchange of the country's external debt for green initiatives.”
Kyrgyzstan’s current external debt of reportedly amounts to about 4.2 billion U.S. dollars
"Of course, we comply and will continue complying with all our external debt obligations, we have all possibilities for that. We just raise the initiative on development of green economy and joint contribution into improvement of environmental situation in the world," the president stated.
"It would be good, if the funds envisioned for repayment of the external debt were channeled for support of green initiatives. We do not say that these projects will be financed solely by donors and partners. We are also ready to make contribution and carry out these projects,” Kyrgyz leader stated.
"For many years, green economy has been discussed at different levels, but in most cases everything remains just on paper. We want to proceed from words to actions, we can change this together," the President said.
"It's no secret that we fall behind other countries of the world in development of green economy. We want to change this as soon as possible. We are convinced that the given initiatives will be supported by donor countries and development partners," the president stated.
"Construction of 50 small and medium-sized hydropower plants is in progress in Kyrgyzstan now. This is not enough. We have ready investment projects. We have the possibility to build small and medium-sized hydropower plants with capacity from 1 to 1,000 MW. The dam sites are ready," he said.
“The countries and financial institutions, from which Kyrgyzstan borrowed funding, could participate in construction of hydropower plants in the country. We will hold ribbon cutting ceremonies at those green economy sites together. We will implement green projects in Kyrgyzstan and will get our external debts written off in exchange," the President said.
"We all want our children to live in a rich country with good economy. We want to become energy-independent country, which uses its potential reasonably. This is why the state will continue moving in this direction, paying more and more attention to ecology and green economy," Japarov concluded.
