Umutzhan Amanbaev was answering a deputy’s question at the Jogorku Kenesh committee that took the 2025 budget execution report on Monday morning. The bank’s income, he said, ran at 9 billion som in earlier years, 12 billion in 2024 and 45.7 billion in 2025, and 2026 should bring a larger profit still.
His explanation was a mine. Once Kumtor passed into state management, the cabinet and the National Bank were allowed to buy gold from the deposit; the bank uses that right actively, he said, and runs currency operations on top of it.
The bank does not exist to make a profit, Amanbaev told the committee, and it nonetheless runs what he called a correct policy on the return of its funds. The figure, 45 billion 696 million som, was in deputy Nilufar Alimzhanova’s question.
Kumtor’s own 2025 report gives the scale of the source. The mine produced 388,418 ounces, or 12,081 kg; revenue was $1,434.6 million, net profit $706.1 million, taxes and other payments $246.5 million; the average realised price was $3,711 an ounce, between a January low of $2,882.7 and a December high of $4,612.95. Gold traded at $4,377.8 an ounce on Comex on Friday, in Kapital’s Saturday print.
A profit that tripled with the price will shrink with it
The finance committee heard the same figure in February with a different year attached. Approving a bill under which the bank would transfer 100% of its profit to the republican budget after audit, the committee was told the bank had transferred 45.7 billion som in 2024 and 12.6 billion in 2023, that about 50 billion could follow, and that 20 to 25% of its income came from gold operations, the rest from managing reserves and securities. The bank's 2025 annual report, approved on 2 April, settles the dating.
The debt came up at the same table. Kyrgyzstan owes China $1.4 billion, Amanbaev said in answer to deputy Ismanali Zhoroev; the Chinese share of the debt was once up to 40% and is now 27%; before 2020 the debt to China equalled 90 to 100% of a year’s budget revenue, and on the seven-month analysis it equals 16%. “We could pay the whole debt today without any problem,” he said, “but it is better to keep to the schedule.” This year 77 billion som goes to debt service, 70% of it external, and the ministry counts no arrears.
President Sadyr Japarov gave the growth figures in Talas on Friday: 11.1% in January to July, 10.2% a year on average over four years, a B+ rating, a consolidated budget of 1.1 trillion som for 2025.
The mine the state took from its foreign operator has become a second treasury, and the road from the pit to the budget runs through the central bank. Gold moves from Kumtor to the bank, the bank earns on it while the ounce climbs, and the bill approved in February would move the whole of that gain to the budget. A profit that tripled with the price will shrink with it; a central bank whose result depends on Comex is a budget line that does the same.
The Chinese debt reads the same way. Its share of the book has come down, and the ratio to revenue has fallen faster because the denominator grew: 11% growth and a gold year inflate the revenue against which $1.4 billion is measured. That ratio describes the boom as much as the repayment.
Three numbers would close the account and none was on the table on Monday: the ounces the bank bought from Kumtor in 2025, the profit line of the audited statement, and whether the 100% bill became law. At Friday’s price, Kumtor’s 2025 output would fetch $1.7 billion.