KULOB, June 2, 2009, Asia-Plus — President’s decree on solution of the cotton subsector debt problems is logical and has been welcomed by farmers, Rajabali Kulabekov, expert in agriculture with the Kulob branch of Amonatbonk (Tajikistan’s savings bank), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According, to Kulabekov, who had served as a chief agronomist with the Kulob agriculture directorate until 2008, farmers ran into debts due to improper activities of the futures companies. “The futures companies never provided the cotton-growing farms with fuels, fertilizers and pesticides opportunely and never paid wages to cotton farmers promptly.” He considers that Hamadoni district failed to fulfill its cotton target in 2007 because of delays in supplying fuels to the district.
“Besides, the futures companies were artificially raising prices of fuels and pesticides, preliminarily slowing delivery of them to farming units that was bringing to increase in farmers’ debts,” Kulabekov said, noting that a system of financing of farming units through banks is more profitable for farmers.
“Farmers now receive loans from banks by themselves and may purchase all necessary things at best prices,” said the expert, “Last year, 226 farming received loans from our bank and 200 of them fulfilled their cotton targets.”
He further added that to ensure regular work of the cotton subsector it was necessary to solve problems of processing of cotton at cotton-ginning factories and realization of cotton fiber in parallel with solution of the cotton subsector debt problems. “Farming units will not be able to solve these problems by themselves,” Kulabekov said, reminding that the fall in the international price of cotton and in demand for the product had hurt many cotton farmers and they had failed to repay their debts on time. According to him, local farmers have repaid 86 percent of loans received from their bank.
We will recall that President Emomali Rahmon on May 30 signed a decree on additional measures to support the country’s agrarian sector. By president’s decree debts that had arisen in the cotton subsector before January 1, 2008 should be settled by means of writing off debts, discounting, extending debt repayments and allowing repayment of debts by instalments, as well as issuing state securities. The government jointly with the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) is to ensure repayment of residual debt to investors and set up an appropriate structure within a month period to ensure an order of restructuring the cotton subsector debt, monitoring and controlling timely repayment of debts to investors as well as the process of writing off the farms’ debts.
