For the first four months since the beginning of this year, Kumtor has paid a record amount to the budget of the Kyrgyz Republic

published: 03 June 2022

From January to April, the state budget received a total of KGS 11 billion 389.9 million.

An amount of KGS 3 billion 604.3 million of which represented a gross receipts tax, compared to only KGS 1 billion 928.1 million for the same period last year. Therefore, the growth amounted to 186%.

Another KGS 7 billion 785.9 million in January-April of this year represented an amount that was allocated for the development of Kyrgyzstan’s mineral resource base.

At the same time, the Kumtor Company paid KGS 8 billion 30.3 million as the gross receipts tax for the full year of 2021.

As a reminder, the annual tax for the development of Kyrgyzstan’s mineral resource base shall be 4% of revenue. In 2021, for the first time in the history of Kumtor mine, new management of Kumtor Gold Company allocated USD 32.9 million, or approximately KGS 2 billion from the proceeds received in excess of the planned budgetary taxes to pay this additional tax.

What is a mineral resource base

The mineral resource base is the mineral resources identified in the Earth’s interior through the process of geological exploration.

Over the preceding decades, due to the work of Kyrgyz geologists there have been identified, studied to varying degrees and being developed many deposits of gold, tin, tungsten, antimony, mercury, rare earth elements, various types of non-metallic minerals, and underground fresh and thermal mineral waters.

Proven reserves of mineral raw materials have enabled mining and processing operations in gold mining, coal mining, non-ferrous metallurgy, rare-earth production and the construction industry.

Establishing high-tech enterprises that extract and process natural raw materials, in addition to Kumtor, as well as the formation of an improved industrial sector, are overriding priorities of the state policy.

Kumtor’s funds in the amount of 4% of revenues since the end of last year have been transferred to the budget to support mining and processing operations in the new economic environment, as well as to discover new deposits, implement a set of measures on technical, technological support of exploration organizations and staffing issues.