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Civil activists and officials visit glaciers in Kumtor area

Discussion of the amendments to the Water Code moved from the theoretical to the practical part. Today more than forty people, including civil activists who spoke against the introduction of changes to the law, visited Kumtor mine at the invitation of Vice Prime Minister Duishenbek Zilaliev.

Nothing was hidden from them, that’s why the excursion around Kumtor was intense: central pit, Sary-Tor quarry, gold recovery factory, Petrov Lake and tailing dam. And, of course, everyone got acquainted with the state of the glaciers in the development zone of the field.

Concerning the Davydov glacier, it became clear that its gold miners are forced to do additional job, since the ice masses moving towards the Central pit pose danger to the employees of the enterprise.

The condition of Lysyi glacier became a revelation for many activists — it only touched by 10%. And according to the initiators of amendments to the Water Code, the changes concern only two glaciers near Kumtor and are aimed at saving other glaciers in Kyrgyzstan.

«There were contradictions in two articles in our legislation, in particular in the Water Code. What do we want under the last general agreement signed with Centerra? We want to approve Kumtor development project in the final pits. It’s for about 8-9 years. Final project will be ready by 2025-2026. We will see the contours of the quarry. And besides Lysyi and Davydov glaciers, we set the condition not to touch other glaciers. That is, we will work confidently and they will work confidently,» Vice Prime Minister Duishenbek Zilaliev said.

As a result of 2016, the share of Kumtor in the GDP structure is about 8 percent. If our GDP was 458 billion soms, then it turns out to be 45 billion soms. This is what Kumtor gives us.

Duishenbek Zilaliev

«Annually budgetary and non-budgetary revenues amount to 7.5- 8.5 billion soms. If we cite other data, the share of Kumtor products in Kyrgyzstan’s export structure is 40 percent. That is about half of all exports,» the Vice Prime Minister noted.

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