Trading Still Depressed at Key Market

Traders at the Dordoi bazaar, a large wholesale market outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, say they are losing money hand over foot as their regular customers from Kazakstan stay away.

Buyers from Kazakstan normally flock to the market to pick up cheap goods for resale at home, but the cross-border trade slumped in April after protests and regime change in Kyrgyzstan prompted the Kazak authorities to close the frontier.

The border reopened on May 20, but trade is still very sluggish. Some buyers are afraid to come because of the continuing unrest in Kyrgyzstan, which has sparked wild rumours of attacks on traders.

Others have arrived at the border on their way back from the market only to find that Kazak border guards will not let them bring their goods into the country.

Kyrgyz customs officials say they cannot understand the new restrictions their colleagues across the border are imposing on imports.

Traders at Dordoi say they are left with heaps of unsold goods and are unable to move on until they repay the loans they took out to buy the stock

The second report in this radio package looks at the pros and cons of abortion in the context of Kyrgyzstan. Many experts want to see better education about contraception as a way of reducing abortion rates. Past attempts to get abortion banned have failed, and the debate these days is about the circumstances in which it should be resorted to.

The audio programme, in Russian and Kyrgyz, went out on national radio stations in Kyrgyzstan, as part of IWPR project work funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.