DUSHANBE
, May 26, Asia-Plus – On Thursday May 25, President Emomali Rahmonov met in
Dushanbe
with representatives from the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to discuss issues related to restructuring debts of cotton-growing farms to creditors.
After the meeting, Mr. Jorgen Vergel (phonetically spelled), the head of the World Bank Section for
East Europe
, told journalists that at present the WB and the ADB were working on two investment projects. “The ADB is considering presentation of a US$12 million project for the cotton sector,” said Mr. Vergel, “A sum of the WB project has not yet been determined.”
According to him, it is necessary to re-orientate
Tajikistan
’s agrarian sector to raising productivity and increasing profit. “We consider it necessary to provide increase in productivity in order that this sector will become more profitable,” Jorgen Vergel stressed, noting that supply and acquisition of raw materials should be carried out on the basis of competition. “Farmers should have the right of choice both when they are purchasing fuel, seeds and other supplies and when they are realizing his product raw materials,” Mr. Vergel noted.
For his part, Murodali Alimardonov, Chairman of the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT), said that it was necessary to carry out land and structural reforms for solving that issue. “Our main goal is a new free farmer,” said the Tajik central bank head, “He should make decision by himself and he should have direct access to loans.” Alimardonov expressed hope that reforms would be carried out by the end of this year and as a result of them a certificate for use of land could serve as pledge for receiving loan. The Tajik central bank head also noted that before making any decision it was necessary to know actual volumes of debt of the cotton-growing farms to creditors. According to the last data, Tajik cotton farmers now owe more than $280 million to domestic and foreign creditors.
According to Alimardonov, a structure of debts is very complicated and some farming units try to hide their origin because of untargeted expenses. “We realize that when crediting of farmers was introduced there were no other financial institutions and that time many farming units were obliged to use these funds for tackling current problems,” said Alimardonov, “In all countries, the land reform is carried out with many difficulties, especially in the country like ours, where there is no enough lands and the results are not visible at once.” The NBT head also added that Tajik central bank intended together with donors to tackle this problem.
