KULOB, January 22, 2009, Asia-Plus — Last year, more than 63,000 labor migrants remitted 136.871 million US dollars, 418.289 million Russian rubles and 63,108 euros to banks in Khatlon’s Kulob region, Abdukarim Nematov, head of the branch of the National bank of Tajikistan (NBT) in Kulob, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, Agroinvestbonk’s branches in the region accounted for 60 percent of the overall volume of money remitted to the Kulob region in 2008.
Over the report period, 3,232 labor migrants travel loans, totaling 7,087,497 somoni, from local banks, Nematov said. Of them, 1,157 people received totaling 4,033,572 somoni in travel loans from Agroinvestbonk’s branches. Branches of Amonatbonk (Tajikistan’s savings bank) in the region provided 2,046,870 somoni in travel loans last year. The branch of Tojik Sodirot Bonk (TSB) and microloan organization, Pakhtakor, in the Vose district provided 364,233 somoni and 77,000 somoni respectively.
We will recall that according to the paper on First Assessment Under the 2008 Staff-Monitored Program for Tajikistan prepared by a staff team of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), labor migrants’ remittances are projected to stagnate due to a slowdown in the two major sources of remittances — Russia and Kazakhstan (an estimated 1 million migrants work in these two countries). Remittances, projected at over 40 percent of GDP in 2008, have been the largest source of current inflows during the last several years, supporting domestic demand and allowing the National bank of Tajikistan (NBT) to accumulate reserves.
