By David Trilling
EurasiaNet.org
Kyrgyzstan’s government has reached yet another possible restructuring plan with Toronto-listed Centerra Gold, which owns the country’s largest and most profitable mine. But the non-binding agreement must still be ratified by Kyrgyzstan’s self-serving parliament, which rejected a strikingly similar plan in October.
The high-altitude Kumtor gold mine is the largest industrial asset in the impoverished Central Asian nation, account for approximately 12 percent of GDP in a good year and over 50 percent of industrial output.
Restructuring negotiations, which would lead to the fourth operating agreement since Canadian miners started developing the Kumtor deposit in the mid-1990s, began after parliament voted in February to tear up a 2009 agreement, maintaining it was not in the interests of the country. Centerra countered that it has invested approximately $1 billion in the mine since signing that contract. Few believe Kyrgyzstan has the technical know-how to operate the project on its own.