Since Kyrgyzstan has joined international initiative Open Government Partnership, the Secretariat of the Council has been actively involved in the process of its implementation. In frame of the OGP implementation, the Secretariat of the Council has developed special methodology for evaluating compliance of business environment measures in compliance with the OGP principles.

OGP evaluation is an analysis of draft laws, decisions and actions of the Government, as well as proposals of the business community to improve the business environment based on criteria for compliance with the OGP principles and impact significance on doing business parameters.

This methodology and evaluation results will be an effective tool for identifying priority measures to improve the business environment in the process of development of OGP National Action Plans.

The methodology was presented to the business community, the Secretariat of the OGP National Forum and published in the international publishing house Lambert Academic Publishing.

Kalikova & Associates is pleased to announce the release of the updated edition of its legal information and reference guide "Business in the Kyrgyz Republic: Legal Aspects", 2018.
This issue was prepared by team of lawyers practicing in various areas of commercial law. We hope that the updated information will be useful guide for those who are interested in doing business in our country.

This report presents the analysis of the assessment of the way inspections are implemented by the Environmental Safety Department of the State Inspectorate for Environmental and Technical Safety of Kyrgyzstan in the capital Bishkek and two districts of Chui region of the Kyrgyz Republic. The study assessed the views of both inspectors of the aforementioned department and of entrepreneurs that were inspected by them. Analysis of the study’s results allowed establishing that:
- There is a decent level of compliance in the Environmental Safety Department of those locations with some of the key requirements of the appropriate legislation (e.g. advance notification, check-lists), but “decent” is still far from “good” or “very good”. The study revealed some variations and inconsistencies between implementation of individual inspectors.
- The merger of seven inspectorates into one under the ‘umbrella’ of the State Inspectorate for Environmental and Technical Safety in 2012 has not yet resulted in a real functional merger internally – sending teams of inspectors is a “stop gap” measure, but deeper changes are needed to progress further.
- The high numbers of violations found and sanctions issued indicate that compliance promotion activities are currently not among the priorities of inspectors of the assessed department with inspectors devoting little to no time to these activities.
- Additional research is required to establish the level of burden in terms of coverage of businesses by inspections. This study was not intended to do it but rather focused on how inspections legislation is implemented to enable identifying any gaps or bottlenecks of implementation.
- Businesses seem to positively react to the use of checklists viewing them as the willingness of inspectors to help entrepreneurs.
- Hotline has not yet gained popularity among businesses. They continue relying on their friends and contacts for information about regulations and compliance requirements.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate reforms and develop recommendations to improve the system of inspections based on risk analysis of tax evasion, within the framework of a joint project "Strengthening public-private dialogue and capacity building" by the Council for Business Development and Investment under the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic and the USAID Project "Reforma".