How sanctions have affected Central Asian countries
altn.news - Covers the impact on Central Asian countries of new US sanctions restrictions imposed on Russia's financial infrastructure, including the Moscow Exchange (MICEX), the National Clearing Centre (NCC) and the National Settlement Depository (NSD), which forced the Russian exchange to suspend foreign exchange trading and move it to the OTC market.
Thus, after the announcement of new restrictions, Kyrgyz banks reported problems with ruble transfers due to sanctions restrictions against (MICEX) - sending and receiving money transfers in Russian rubles is not available in Kompanion Bank CJSC and Kyrgyz-Swiss Bank CJSC. The service "ruble-dollar conversion" was temporarily switched off in the bank "Bai-Tushum" CJSC. Several credit institutions, including Kyrgyzkommertsbank OJSC and Eldik Bank OJSC, stated that they temporarily disabled interaction with money transfer operators from Russia - this affected such popular services of fast transfers as Unistream, Zolotaya Korona, and Contact. Keremet Bank OJSC also does not operate the money transfer system, however, it is possible to use current account for transactions, but due to possible sharp fluctuations of currency market a temporary restriction on ruble accounts has been introduced.
However, there is still no threat to the assets of Russian clients in Kyrgyz banks, in particular, clients of Kyrgyz banks can still cash out their accounts, but this can only be done by personally visiting a branch of the relevant financial institution in Kyrgyzstan.
Asia Alliance Bank LLC in Uzbekistan also reported certain changes in its work with clients from Russia. The credit organisation posted an official message stating that "due to the renewal of the US sanctions package, all currency transactions related to Russian residents have been suspended". However, the bank later removed this message, and the currency department of the credit organisation told clients that work continued "in a normal mode".
Financial regulator of Kazakhstan is also closely following the current situation, but since Russia is moving to alternative platforms, on which the ruble-dollar pair is traded, no changes are expected on Kazakhstan stock exchange (KASE), and only in case of necessity appropriate measures will be taken to minimize the negative influence of external factors on stability of financial sector of Kazakhstan, which was already announced in Agency on regulation and development of financial market (ARDF).
It is noteworthy that in addition to restrictions on Russia's financial infrastructure, the US authorities also applied the instrument of so-called "secondary sanctions", in particular, more than 300 legal entities, including two Kyrgyz companies - Transit Service Bishkek LLC and Nova Project LLC - fell under the sanctions restrictions; these companies are accused of active co-operation with Russian business.
It is alleged that the Kyrgyz company Nova Project LLC was allegedly used by Russian businessman Dmitry Alikhanov as an intermediary to purchase machine tools that were then used in the Russian aerospace industry, but the reasons for the inclusion of Transit Service Bishkek LLC in the US sanctions list are not specified.
One Kazakhstani company also fell under restriction, it is KBR-Technologies LLP, registered in Kazakhstan, which allegedly participated in circumventing sanctions restrictions against Russia. CBD-Technologies LLP is registered in Petropavlovsk, the company has been operating since 2022 and during this time has managed to pay 93.8 million tenge in taxes to the budget.
From information sent by an anonymous source
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