DUSHANBE, December 18, 2015, Asia-Plus – In the third quarter of this year, remittance flows from the Russian federation to Tajikistan have reportedly declined by 73.5 percent compared to the same period last year.
According to Russia’s central bank, only 358 million U.S. dollars have been sent through money transfer system to Tajikistan from the Russian Federation over the third quarter (July-September) of this year, which was 990 million U.S. dollars fewer than in the same period last year (1.348 billion U.S. dollars).
In all, 1.054 billion U.S. dollars have been remitted to Tajikistan from the Russian Federation over the first nine months of this year, which was 65.1 percent fewer than in the same period last year.
3.016 billion U.S. dollars were reportedly sent from Russia to Tajikistan through money transfer system in January-September 2014.
The economic contraction in Russia, a major remittance source country, has resulted in migrant job losses while the depreciation of the ruble has reduced the real incomes of migrant workers in Russia and reduced the value of remittances in US dollar terms. Central Asian countries are the hardest hit, due to their heavy dependency on remittances from Russia.
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.
Tajikistan is the world’s most remittance dependent country, with remittances constituting 45 percent of GDP in 2014. Last year, Tajikistan’s GDP stood at 45.6 billion somoni (equivalent to 8.6 billion U.S. dollars).
