Businesses of five Central Asian countries proposed a unified digital interoperability mechanism

For now, this is a proposal that still needs to be conveyed to officials of five countries — and it is not certain that they will accept it.

The essence in brief

• At the round table "Integration of Central Asian Countries into the Digital Agenda" on September 28 in Astana, a draft intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of digital policy and AI was presented — the document was prepared by experts and business representatives from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, KAZINFORM reports.
• The idea is not a single legislation or a supranational regulator, but rather the compatibility of systems: countries retain their jurisdiction but agree on a single mechanism of interaction — mutual recognition of electronic signatures and documents, simplification of cross-border payments, digital identification, electronic document flow, and convergence of approaches to AI regulation.
• The draft is not yet with the governments: it is planned to be handed over to the authorized bodies at upcoming events in Astana — the B5+1, C5+1, and Digital Bridge platforms.
• The initiators cite a timeframe of three to four years for implementing the agreement, provided that the countries' government agencies support it.

What exactly is being proposed

Chairman of the Central Asian Fintech Association Otabek Nasirov outlined the difference between this proposal and full-fledged integration: "We are not proposing to create some kind of interstate single body or single legislation for the five countries."

According to him, that would take too much time. Instead, a compatibility mechanism is proposed — a way to reach agreement without significant changes to each country's legislation.

The difference is fundamental. A single regulator means the loss of part of national sovereignty in a specific area and years of coordination. Compatibility of systems is essentially a technical and procedural solution: if an electronic signature issued in Kazakhstan is recognized in Uzbekistan, citizens and businesses do not need to reissue documents at the border. A similar principle already works in other unions — for example, in the EU with the eIDAS system for mutual recognition of digital identification. But there it took more than ten years and required supranational regulation, which the authors of the Central Asian project are precisely trying to avoid.

Why it is business, not governments, that is deciding

It is telling that the initiative comes from below — from the fintech association and business representatives, rather than from ministries. There is logic to this: business is the first to encounter barriers in cross-border payments and document recognition, so it has a direct interest in solving specifically the technical part of the problem. But this also has a limitation — an industry association does not have the authority to sign intergovernmental agreements. For now, the project is a recommendation that still needs to be translated into the political plane through negotiations with five governments.

Nasirov framed the bet this way: "If in the next three to four years we can, together with government agencies, implement this intergovernmental agreement, we will make life easier not only for business but also for ordinary citizens."

The ultimate goal is stated even more broadly — for the international technology business to perceive Central Asia as a single market with a population of more than 80 million people, rather than as five separate jurisdictions.

Author's conclusion

The value of this project is not that it is already changing something — at this stage it is a proposal for review, not a signed document. The value is that the task is formulated narrowly and practically: not a supranational body, but the compatibility of specific systems. It is precisely such narrow technical agreements that more often reach implementation than large-scale integration projects. The next test is the reaction of governments at the B5+1, C5+1, and Digital Bridge platforms: whether the five countries will agree to seriously discuss the compatibility mechanism or whether the project will remain a declaration by an industry association.