ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 examines new entrepreneurs in Kyrgyzstan’s vibrant garment or ‘self-sewing’ sector. It follows the evolution of one business lady in-between 2013 and 2017 to illustrate in detail how the investment in equipment, facilities and personnel enabled her to continuously ‘move up’ her value chain, and to understand what it entails when traders speak of having a ‘light hand’ in selling. The example of a trader-turned-entrepreneur, who invested at a larger scale into the establishment of an own ‘sewing factory’, shows that within a changing economic policy environment local manufacturing became the more profitable alternative to the previously dominant scheme of ‘simply importing and re-selling’ ready-made products from Turkey, China or elsewhere. Finally, the chapter detects that, aside from profitability, it was an ‘entrepreneurial pride’, as opposed to being ‘only a trader’, which presented a way to positively connect to ‘the people’ and ‘the nation’, and to self-confidently oppose state authorities that were widely experienced as non-supportive and bribe hungry.
