The employee was working at the ore conveyor at the mine's mill at the time, the company said in a statement. An internal investigation has been launched, and Kyrgyz police and other relevant regulatory authorities have been contacted.

The Kumtor mine is the biggest foreign investment in Kyrgyzstan and accounted for 7.4 percent of the Central Asian nation's GDP in 2014.

The Kyrgyzstan government and Toronto-based Centerra have been in drawn-out on-and-off talks on restructuring the ownership of the mine. The ex-Soviet republic currently owns a 32.7 percent stake in Centerra.

On Dec. 22 the government said it had stopped talks with Centerra because the current agreement "ran counter to the country's national interests."

(Reporting by Nicole Mordant in Vancouver; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)