Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov took his country a step closer to issuing its own central bank’s digital currency on Thursday and signing legislation that gives the “digital as” legal status.

The Central Asian country still decides whether they will issue a CBDC or not, but Thursday’s amendments to the Kyrgyziz Republic of the Republic ensure that the digital who will be treated as a legal bid if the central bank goes on issuing a CBDC.

“The purpose of the Constitutional Law is to launch a pilot project of a prototype of a national digital currency, ‘digital as’ and to set up a legal basis and its status,” states the president’s website.

Under the new provisions, the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic will be able to develop and approve rules for making payments on the digital as platform.

These provisions described as amendments to the president’s website were first adopted on March 20 by Kyrgyzstan’s supreme council. The country should start testing the digital as this year, according to New News Outlet Trend News Agency. The country is not expected to make a final decision on whether CBDC should issue CBDC before next year.

The idea of ​​CBDCs has been controversial among some crypto advocates, but countries such as Britain, Nigeria, Jamaica and Bahamas – as well as the European Union’s multinational block – have moved towards issuing a CBDC, while other countries such as the United States have largely moved away from the idea of ​​issuing one.