DUSHANBE, May 21, Asia-Plus — International Finance Corporation (IFC) will provide technical assistance to Tajikistan in projecting legislative and regulatory documents in the field of housing mortgage crediting.
According to the IFC Dushanbe Office, the technical assistance is provided within the framework of the second phase of the Central Asia Primary Mortgage Market Development Project designed for the period till 2009.
The source said that this two-phased, regional program documents demand and identify gaps in current housing finance systems in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. This study is IFC’s first regional housing TA program in Central Asia. The data will be used to create action plans for improving the affordability and availability of housing funds for middle and lower income households and, where feasible, generate business viability plans for primary and secondary mortgage finance companies in each country.
According to him, the second stage of the project provides for technical assistance in the direct implementation of reforms, including working out of legislative and regulatory documents, introduction of state-of-the-art technologies of mortgage crediting into commercial banks as well as making population aware of the mortgage crediting.
On occasion of launch of the project’s second phase, Shahbaz Mavaddat, IFC’s Director for Southern Europe and Central Asia, will arrive in Dushanbe on May 24.
The first phase of the project, which was implemented from 2005 to 2006, focused on determining legislative and other obstacles on the way of development of housing finance system and working out a plan of actions for development of mortgage market in each country of the region.
As part of its project for development of small and medium businesses in Tajikistan, the IFC Dushanbe Office published a report “Business Environment in Tajikistan as Seen by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).”
