The 9th phase of the programme will be extended until December 14th, 2019. The decision was taken by the European Commission and supported by all five Central Asian States. The European Union allocated an additional amount of 1,6 million EUR for the extension period, and therefore all five Central Asian countries have signed addendums to their financing agreements with the EU.
On June 4-8, 2018 a group of experts from the State Border Guard of Latvia, State Revenue Service of Latvia, and Ministry of Interior of Hungary gathered with the representatives of the Kyrgyz Border management. The meeting is initiated on request of the Kyrgyz counterparts to benefit from the EU experiences and expertise in re-design and actualising the IBM Action Plan until 2023. This activity corresponds to the specific objective of the programme to sustain institutional development in the transition to more effective and efficient methods of border management, building upon good practices of the IBM paradigm.
In May 2018 in all 5 Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan On May 16 in Astana, May 18 in Tashkent, May 25 in Bishkek, May 29 in Dushanbe, and June 01 in Ashgabat BOMCA gathered its national partners in order to jointly asses the work done during the previous year and discuss planned activities for the rest of the programme duration. The meetings also coincided with 15 years of BOMCA presence in the region.
On May 02-05, 2018 a yearly Regional Workshop for consortia of border guarding and customs training institutions of Central Asian countries was held in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The representatives of the training institutions from all five Central Asian countries gathered to share their experience and ideas on the capacity building activities in the educational processes.
Migration processes continue to grow in the Kyrgyz Republic. Currently, migration directly affects over 3 million people (approx. 50% of the total population), and it will remain an important economic and social factor in the foreseeable future, and a constituent part of foreign policy. Therefore, harmonisation of conflict-ascertainment and migration-related legal actions is a primary objective for government policy development and implementation in the long-term.
On November 25th, 2015, the European Commission adopted a proposal to grant inclusion in the extended Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) to Kyrgyzstan. After consideration by the Council and the European Parliament, the granting EU regulation was published in the Official Journal of the EU on January 26th, 2016, and came into effect the following day. The decision of the European Union to grant GSP+ status to the Kyrgyz Republic opened up a new potential in economic relations, and offered opportunities for Kyrgyzstan to increase and diversify its exports and strengthen its economy. The GSP+ means the full removal of tariffs on more than 6000 product categories, and Kyrgyz exporters are now able, at a zero tariff rate, to supply agricultural products such as fruits, processed fruits (canned fruits, juice), dried fruits (walnuts, almonds, pistachios), food products, tobacco, textiles, felt products, clothing (including leather), and carpets to the European Union.
On April 10th-12th, Bishkek hosted an EU expert team, who aimed to assess the strategic development of Integrated Border Management (IBM) in the Kyrgyz Republic. N. Garbars, Chief of Latvian State Border Guard and Coordinator of BOMCA 9, together with Ingrida Gulbe Otanke, Chief of Latvian Customs Service, discussed border management strategies and the development thereof in Kyrgyzstan.
On March 28th-30th in Bishkek and April 2nd-4th in Astana, experts met with main border management actors and facilitated the development of a country risk analysis report, where the main risks for border security are stated and measures for their prevention and elimination are listed. This activity built upon the guidelines on interagency cooperation, which were developed in both countries previously.
