Chinese businessman linked to Kyrgyz official’s son emerges behind $20bn Asman eco-city project
For years, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has championed Asman, a planned multibillion-dollar “eco-city” on the pristine shores of Lake Issyk-Kul, as the crown jewel of his national development strategy.
Spearheading the mega-project is a Kyrgyz company called RedStone Group. Corporate registry records show that company is owned by a Chinese businessman who previously co-owned a company with the son of the head of Kyrgyzstan’s National Investment Agency.
The National Investment Agency, which is involved in developing Asman, did not respond to a request for comment addressed also to its director, Ravshan Sabirov
RedStone Group did not respond to a request for comment.
The Asman project has long been the subject of government announcements, groundbreaking ceremonies, and meetings with foreign delegations. Officials have presented it as a symbol of a modern Kyrgyzstan, and one of the country’s most ambitious infrastructure plans.
But early talks with investors from France, South Korea, and India failed to produce visible construction. The Kyrgyz government relaunched the project on November 3, 2025, and authorities announced RedStone’s involvement.
RedStone had already been selected for the project, according to an August 2025 draft of an investment agreement. RedStone was incorporated in Kyrgyzstan in July 2024.
Reporters found the investment agreement in a government database attached to a decree from the Cabinet of Ministers approving the agreement for the project. The government did not share a signed copy of the agreement.
Under the terms of a draft investment agreement, RedStone pledged a $20 billion investment in the eco-city — a sum that is close to Kyrgyzstan’s entire gross domestic product in 2025. In exchange for this staggering financial commitment, the draft contract stipulated that the company would receive the rights to utilize 4,015 hectares of land for nearly half a century.
In a December 2025 televised interview, Elmar Zhunusov, head of the State Directorate for the Construction of the Ecologically Clean City of Asman, confirmed the amount of land ceded to RedStone for 49 years.
Official records name Chinese citizen Tu Yunfei as the sole shareholder of RedStone. He took over the company after the draft agreement was drawn up.
At the time RedStone was named in the draft investment agreement, the firm’s director was a woman named Leila Imin. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Imin had also served as director of a Bishkek-based company called Zet Systems. Tu Yunfei, who took over RedStone, had previously co-owned Zet Systems.
Another co-owner of Zet Systems was the son of Ravshan Sabirov, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s National Investment Agency. The son, Nizamidin Sabirov, did not respond to a request for comment.
Another company that has been named as a possible partner in the Asman development was Module House, which specializes in manufacturing and installing prefabricated homes. While Module House is included in a 2024 draft investment agreement obtained by reporters — a previous version of the one found attached to the 2025 Council of Ministers decree — there is no evidence of its involvement today.
A 2024 investigation found that Module House was part of a network of firms involved in major projects overseen by the Presidential Administrative Directorate and linked to people close to Japarov’s circle and Kanybek Tumanbaev, the directorate’s head.
Neither Tumanbaev nor the directorate responded to questions about the inclusion of Module House in earlier plans for the Asman development. Module House did not respond to a request for comment.
Politics Editor
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