Video conference with World Bank about IT industry in Kyrgyz Republic

Aziz Soltobaev, as external expert of National Institute of Strategic Studies (NISS), participated in video conference with World Bank office in Washington DC about topic “Opportunities and Challenges for development of IT industry in Kyrgyz Republic”.

As participant of conference call, Aziz Soltobaev made presentation about “Creating sustainable startup ecosystem in Kyrgyz Republic”.  Aziz pointed to the regional forecasts of World Bank for the year 2015-2017, “Armenia, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, and Tajikistan are
vulnerable to dislocations in the Russian labor market because of the importance of remittances from Russia. Declining prices of agricultural commodities, metals, and raw materials are expected to weaken the terms of trade and reduce trade balances”. As potential consequences might be  Weaker remittances from labor workers to Kyrgyz Republic (29% of GDP),  forecasted current account balance estimated -14%, Labor migrants return back and create social
tension, competition for jobs.

As a possible solution, Aziz proposed  “Train labor type of skills necessary to create added-value without living country in distance;  Create Internet related jobs and services; Spur Internet entrepreneurship, i.e. startup movement”.

World Bank had similar experience in building skills for tech entrepreneurs in Beirut  as a part of World Bank Project in Lebanon (http://www.mie-p.org/).

Head of NISS Talant Sultanov told that despite economic challenges in country, national think tanks promotes information and communications technology (ICT) as one of the top agendas of the country. As an example, Mr. Sultanov shared news that NISS prepares analytical note to Kyrgyz Government about concept of ICT development.

From their side, representatives of World Bank office in DC  learned about ICT situation in Kyrgyz Republic and agreed to discuss with leadership of World Bank opportunities for collaboration on development of ICT in Kyrgyz Republic

More about meeting: http://www.nisi.kg/ru-news-1330