BISHKEK — The report on monetary policy for the first quarter of 2018 issued by the National Bank of Kyrgyzstan has lowered by 2.3% the forecast for GDP growth in the country at the end of the yaer.

Following the results of 2017, the National Bank expected that the economy of the republic would grow by 5.5%. Without the work of the enterprises developing Kumtor mine, the rate should have been 5.2%.

However, after analyzing the data for the first half of 2018, the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic came to the conclusion that in 2018 the real GDP growth was expected to be only about 3.2%, otherwise 4.2% by excluding the Kumtor enterprises.

In 2019, GDP growth is forcasted to reach 3.6%, excluding Kumtor enterprises about 5.2%. This is correspondingly lower by 0.7 and 0.2% than the initial estimate.