Kyrgyzstan took the 116th place in the Index of Economic Freedom 2022 compiled by the Heritage Foundation.
The ranking is compiled annually on the basis of calculations in 10 main categories, taking into account the degree of economic and trade freedoms, investment openness, state intervention in the economy, the corruption factor, and etc.
The level of economic freedom of the republic was rated at 55.8 points out of 100.
Compared to last year, the overall country’s score dropped by 7.9 points. Kyrgyzstan was classified as a country that is mostly unfree in economic terms. Gabon (115th place) and Uzbekistan (117th) became the neighbors of the republic in the ranking.
The Kyrgyz Republic also takes the 24th place among 39 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and the country’s overall score is below the regional and global averages.
«Kyrgyzstan’s economic growth turned negative in 2020 but recovered in 2021. A five-year trend of expanding economic freedom has been broken. Amid falling scores for business freedom, labor freedom, and rule of law, Kyrgyzstan has recorded a 5.3-point overall loss of economic freedom since 2017 and has fallen from the «moderately free» category to the «mostly unfree» category. The burden of taxes on the economy is relatively light, but judicial effectiveness is dangerously weak,» authors of the index say.
Kazakhstan takes the 64th place in the index and is classified as a moderately free economy.
Tajikistan is ranked 147th, Turkmenistan — the 165th. They were classified as states with repressive economies.
Russia took the 113th place, Belarus — 135th, Armenia — 58th.
Singapore took the first place in the ranking for the third year in a row with a score of 84.4 points. Switzerland and Ireland are in the top three. Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea take the bottom lines of the ranking.
