Kyrgyz people are known for their strong cultural attachment for holding feasts, celebrations, weddings, anniversaries and so on. Usually hundreds of people are invited to this kind of celebrations and these massive gatherings have become a part of cultural tradition of Kyrgyz people.

An interesting study called “Cost of Traditions” has been conducted by the Institute of Economic Policy “Bishkek Consensus”. The study was conducted on costs of the people of Kyrgyzstan related to holding celebrations, feasts, anniversaries, organization of funerals and funeral feasts, informs AKIpress.

According to this study, the costs of the above mentioned traditions exceed one third of the country’s GDP or its public external debt. This amount exceeded gross domestic investments almost twice.

This way, costs for traditional rituals have become the main factor of economic growth through excessive growth of consumption. On another hand, a low level of the population’s savings and insufficient amount of gross domestic investments have become another consequence of this phenomenon. These resulting effects disrupt the potential of Kyrgyzstan’s sustainable economic growth in future.

The Economic Policy Institute-Bishkek Consensus (EPI), Kyrgyzstan, was created in December of 2003 as a non-profit, non-partisan, independent institute with developed partnerships and cooperative relationships with government, business, international community, civil society, and the news media. EPI’s mission is to promote economic, social, and governance reforms in Kyrgyzstan, involving institutions of civil society to elaborate and execute the reforms, developing local potential and using best international experience. Its strategic position is to be an independent and highly objective source of information and research on public-policy issues, as well as an unbiased forum for collaboration of diverse interest groups in the reform of public policy.

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