Kyrgyzstan’s Cabinet of Ministers has officially terminated the investment agreement for the “Construction of the Eco-Friendly City of Asman” project with Chinese company CITIC Merchant and Kyrgyz firm Modul Haus LLC. The corresponding order was signed by Prime Minister Akylbek Japarov on April 23, according to Tazabek.
The document states that Cabinet order No. 724-r, dated November 13, 2024, which had approved the project, has been rendered null and void. The reason for the termination was not disclosed.
According to the agreement, CITIC Merchant—a Chinese financial-industrial conglomerate—and Modul Haus LLC, a Kyrgyz firm involved in residential and commercial construction, were to invest $480 million in the project. The companies were granted a 4,015-hectare land plot in the Tamchi rural district of the Issyk-Kul region for a period of 49 years. Construction was scheduled to begin no later than December 1, 2024.
The project envisioned the creation of an environmentally sustainable city featuring modern infrastructure. Upon completion and commissioning of the facilities, CITIC Merchant and Modul Haus would have received ownership and operational rights for 49 years, while 10 percent of the properties would have been transferred to the government.
President Sadyr Japarov launched the Asman project in June 2023 by laying a symbolic capsule. In November 2024, the government announced an allocation of $480 million in funding. The total project cost was estimated at approximately $20 billion, with a projected timeline of seven to eight years.
At the time, project author and head of the Asman Directorate Ruslan Akmataliev told Economist.kg that the first investor set to begin construction was the South Korean company Promise Land. According to Akmataliev, a contract worth over $1 billion had already been signed, and the Korean firm expressed willingness to invest up to $10 billion in the project.
Akmataliev added that the Kyrgyz authorities were in talks with several other major investors. “The more investors we have implementing the project, the faster we’ll complete construction,” he said.
