Calls For Tougher Immigration Controls

The Kyrgyz parliament has resisted a move to impose a quota on the number of foreign workers allowed into the country, but observers say anti-immigrant feelings are growing in the country.



On September 21, parliamentarians voted down a government proposal to introduce quotas for the number of foreign workers in the country. Drafted by the State Committee for Migration and Employment, the bill proposed a limit of around 6,000 allowed in the country at any one time, which is about the same as the number of foreigners officially working in Kyrgyzstan at the moment.



One member of parliament interviewed by NBCentralAsia says that parliament mostly supports the plan and rejected it only because it would be better to impose a quota at the beginning of the year rather than now.



NBCentralAsia’s political observers agree that the quota will eventually be introduced and that it will help the government deflect negative public sentiment about workers from abroad.



Some 500,000 to 700,000 out of a population of just five million have left the country in search of better economic conditions elsewhere, and this has created fears of a possible influx of migrants from overpopulated countries.



In June this year, Finance Minister Akylbek Japarov suggested giving work permits to Chinese citizens only if they have a high income and can invest in the Kyrgyz economy. This would, he argued, prevent low-skilled workers coming in and taking jobs that Kyrgyzstan’s own unemployed could have got.



After the May 2005 violence in Andijan, when Kyrgyzstan temporarily accepted several hundred Uzbek refugees before sending them to other countries, there was some concern that thousands more Uzbeks would come across the border and settle in southern Kyrgyzstan.



However, the experts say the real number of potential immigrants is much lower than supporters of tighter controls suggest. One source in the border guards service said the number of migrants from China is exaggerated – for instance, there are only 70 Chinese nationals working at the Karasuu market, which is often cited as an example of creeping Chinese expansion.



Furthermore, introducing an immigration quota could put off foreign investors – a concern has already been expressed by the International Business Committee, an association of major investors in Kyrgyzstan.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)