Among more than 1 million cars in the country, 80% are older than 15 years
The government of Kyrgyzstan has proposed an initiative to ban the registration and re-registration of vehicles that are not equipped with catalytic converters. At a briefing, Nursultan Tashybek uulu, head of the Air Protection Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Ecology, and Technical Supervision, reported that this directive was addressed to the Ministry of Economy.
According to him, an interdepartmental commission is currently functioning, dealing with issues of improving air quality in the country, and its powers were expanded in 2025.
One of the key recommendations of the commission was to regulate the vehicle fleet in the republic.
“Old cars are one of the causes of air pollution. In Kyrgyzstan, there are over 1 million registered vehicles, of which more than 80% are older than 15 years. In the capital, Bishkek, the number of such cars exceeds 400,000. Over time, their main exhaust gas filtration device—the catalytic converter—fails. We are observing an active buyout of these devices. In this regard, we are conducting raids to identify points that buy catalytic converters. It is important for every citizen to understand the necessity of having this unit in their vehicle,” noted Tashybek uulu.
The catalytic converter should become a mandatory element of the car, just like the wheels.
“Currently, there is no mandatory technical inspection for all vehicles in the country; it is only conducted for vehicles that carry passengers and cargo. If technical inspection were mandatory, the presence of a catalytic converter would be checked annually. We are looking for alternative solutions, such as checking for the presence of a catalytic converter during the registration and re-registration of a vehicle. If it is not present, registration will not be conducted. For now, these are just proposals that we plan to discuss in the first quarter of next year,” he added.
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