KULOB, March 20, Asia-Plus — 13 residents from the village of Kongurt in Khatlon’s Temourmalik district seeking seasonal work in Russian yesterday received travel loans from the Tojiksodirotbonk (TSB) office in Temourmalik, Abdukarim Nematov, the head of the TSB branch in Kulob, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, they have received $500 each. Earlier, 10 other residents of Kongurt had received similar travel loans from TSB.
“Before that, to get loan people had to collect various documents that took quite a lot of time; moreover, they could receive money only in Kulob,” said Nematov. “To make this procedure easier we have decided to provide such loans in our money-transfer office in Kongurt.”
In the near future, the Kulob branch plans to open such offices in Muminobod, Vose and Kulob districts as well. “Over the past month, labor migrants have received more than $30,000 in travel loans from the TSB branch in Kulob,” Nematov said.
TSB was established in December 1990 as the Tajik branch of the Vnesh Econom Bank of the former Soviet Union, and it initially specialized in trade and import-export banking. Later this branch was reorganized into a Joint-Stock Commercial Bank “Tajikvnesheconombank”. In June 1999 the bank was renamed and registered as Tojiksodirotbonk or TSB.
Headquartered in Dushanbe, TSB has 11 branches in the main cities of Tajikistan and covering all regions of the country. Its clients include the biggest Tajik trading companies, other enterprises, entrepreneurs, and some of the embassies and diplomatic organizations based in Dushanbe.
