DUSHANBE, August 6, 2008, Asia-Plus — President Emomali Rahmon today morning met with visiting delegation of the International Monetary Fund, led Mr. David Owen, Senior Advisor in the IMF”s Middle East and Central Asia Department.
Speaking to reporters after his meeting with Rahmon, Mr. Owen said that Russia’s audit company BT-Unicom has started examining activity of Barqi Tojik (Tajik electric systems) power holding.
According to him, activities of Tajik central bank is also currently being audited and the audit results will be announced in November this year.
As far as auditing activities of Talco (Tajik Aluminum Company) is concerned, the Fund official said that draft proposal for conducting audit had already been prepared.
Mr. Owen noted that Tajikistan’s economy is still being rehabilitated after the past difficult winter. “We are concerned over high inflation rates, high prices of food products and electrical power in the republic,” said the IMF official. “We hope the Government of Tajikistan will take into account our proposals in this direction.”
Mr. Owen, heading the Fund’s delegation arrived in Tajikistan, today morning to evaluate the present macroeconomic situation and initial progress of implementation of the Staff Monitored Program (SMP).
We will recall that the Staff Monitored Program (SMP) covers the period June 1-December 31, 2008. The SMP establishes a macroeconomic framework that will support the country’s efforts at economic stabilization and implementation of structural reforms to help address the current problems faced by Tajikistan. At the core of this program are measures to strengthen the autonomy and governance of the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT), aiming to address weaknesses exposed by the recent incident of misreporting. Tajikistan reached understanding with Fund staff on the SMP during the April 17-30 mission.
