DUSHANBE, July 1, 2015, Asia-Plus – In the first quarter of this year, remittance flows from Russia to Tajikistan have reportedly declined by nearly 87 percent compared to same period last year.
According to Russia’s central bank, 364 million U.S. dollars have been sent through money transfer system to Tajikistan from the Russian Federation over the first three months of this year, which was 284 million U.S. dollars fewer than in the same period last year (648 million U.S. dollars).
Meanwhile, remittance flows from Russia to Uzbekistan and Ukraine have also significantly declined over the same three-month period. Remittance flows to Uzbekistan has declined nearly two times and remittance flows to Ukraine have declined more than 2.1 times.
466 million U.S. dollars have been remitted to Uzbekistan in January-March this year, which was 458 million U.S. dollars fewer than in the same period last year (924 million U.S. dollars).
260 million U.S. dollars have been remitted to Ukraine over the first quarter of this year, which was 334 million U.S. dollars fewer than in the same period last year (594 million U.S. dollars).
The National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) has earlier noted 289 million U.S. dollars have been remitted to banks in the country over the first three months of this year, which was 42.4 percent fewer than in the same period last year.
We will recall that 3.831 billion U.S. dollars (USD) were sent through money transfer system to Tajikistan from the Russian Federation last year, which was 324 million USD, or almost 8 percent, fewer compared to 2013.
In 2013, 4.155 billion USD were remitted to banks in Tajikistan from Russia, which was 45 million USD fewer than in 2012.
Last year’s remittance flows to Tajikistan were estimated to account for 45 percent of country’s gross domestic product, which stood at 45.6 billion somoni (equivalent to 8.6 billion USD) in 2014.
