Despite nearly seventy years of Soviet industrialization Kyrgyzstan's economy remains primarily agricultural. According to World Bank statistics, agriculture contributed an estimated 44.2 percent to gross domestic product (GDP) in 1997. Grain...

The economy of Kyrgyzstan was severely affected by the collapse of the Soviet trading block. In 1990, some 98% of Kyrgyz exports went to other parts of the Soviet Union. Thus, the nation's economic performance in the early 1990s was worse than any other...