Western analysts warn of inflation as Kyrgyzstan joins EEU

Kyrgyzstan joins EEU: Kyrgyzstan’s membership of the Eurasian Economic Union  finally becomes a reality this week amid Western concerns that it will lead to a sharp rise in prices and marks a step movement towards full political dependence on Russia.
The initial manifestation of membership will be a reduction in the queues of lorries at its border with Kazakhstan, the only EEU country with which it shares a border. “It won’t be necessary to fill out any customs declarations, there won’t be any more customs procedures,”said Kyrgyzstan’s Economy Minister Oleg Pankratov. “Exporters will simply have to go through a simplified form of registration carried out by the border service.”
Western sceptics point that the same will not be true of goods arriving from other major importing countries such as Turkey, Iran and particularly China, which supplies its tiny neighbour with everything from electronics and car parts to toys.
Prices for all these goods stand to go up, analysts are predicting, fostering concerns within the EU that the new bloc is little more than a vehicle to service Moscow’s economic interests. “This will be a Russian market, they’re just opening a market for themselves,” said Shavkat Kasimi, an Afghan-born import broker based in southern Kyrgyzstan. “They won’t let anybody else in.”
For their part, Russian experts and officials insist that integration with Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia will be beneficial for the economy of the country and will be a great benefit for Kyrgyz labor migrants working in Russia and Kazakhstan.