While European partners limit themselves to diplomatic hints of interest in Kyrgyzstan’s strategic mineral reserves, China is taking action. On April 23, 2025, a Kyrgyz-Chinese company focused on rare metals development was officially registered in Bishkek, according to data from the Ministry of Justice of Kyrgyzstan, Akchabar.kg reports.
The primary activity of the new legal entity, founded by Erzhan Asanov and I. Gaowen, is listed as the extraction and processing of precious metal ores. The company’s office is located in Bishkek, though no specific license or mining site has yet been disclosed.
The registration of a company with such a telling name is hard to interpret outside of the global context. China and the United States are engaged in a full-scale trade war, and rare earth metals have become a critical front in this conflict. These elements are essential for producing batteries, microchips, defense technologies, and green energy solutions.
Since 2011, another entity has been registered in Kyrgyzstan — the “Kashkinsky Rare Earth Elements Plant” LLC, linked to Canadian firm Stans Energy Corp. and its local subsidiary, Kutisay Mining LLC. According to open sources, these companies are or were associated with the Kutessay II and Kalesay deposits, whose development has been frozen since the 1990s.
Although both firms are still officially active, their operations have been declining in recent years. For instance, already modest budget payments from the Kashkinsky plant dropped 3.5 times — from 443,600 soms in 2022 to just 127,500 soms in 2024. Kutisay Mining’s decline was even steeper: from 650,700 soms to 96,700 soms.
Earlier reports noted that in early April, at the “Central Asia–European Union” summit in Samarkand, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov urged EU countries to jointly develop rare earth deposits. However, Western partners have yet to take concrete steps — at least none have been publicly disclosed.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
May 7, 2025