DUSHANBE, January 8, 2009, Asia-Plus – Remittances to Tajikistan’s remote eastern autonomous region of Gorno-Badakhshan have fallen by 50 percent in just three months, an official from the Tajik National Bank revealed.
Zafar Bakhshieyev, the bank’s branch manager in Khorog, the regional capital, told the state-owned Khovar news agency on January 6 that money transfers from Russia had plunged by 50 percent during the last quarter of 2008.
According to Bakhshieyev, more than 24,000 residents of the region are currently registered as working in Russia. The global financial crisis has severely limited their ability to support their families at home, he added. Gorno-Badakhshan is one of Tajikistan’s poorest regions.
