DUSHANBE, March 6, 2009, Asia-Plus — Specialists from the Institute for Economic Studies at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MoEDT) have applied to the working group of the interagency anticrisis commission with solicitation to speed up the process of reviewing the plan for mitigation of effects of the financial crisis.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Director of the Institute for Economic Studies, Professor Nouriddin Qayumov, said that the CIS states had developed the anticrisis programs long ago and only Tajikistan has not yet had such a program, while the working group for development of the anticrisis plan was set up at the end of last year already.
“The interagency commission has applied to our specialists for their resolutions only after the initial version of the plan was returned by the government as requiring improvement,” Professor Qayumov said, noting that their specialists’ resolutions concerned, primarily, monetary and tax systems and they already been sent to the working group.
“We, in particularly, offered differential VAT rates for some products. Under conditions of the financial crisis, it is necessary to reduce VAT on the top priority products (baby foods, basic food products and some other consumer goods). Applying a reduced VAT rate to these products while increasing VAT rates for the less important products could stabilize prices for the top priority products,” said the senior expert, “We also proposed not to raise cargo transportation, certain communal services and electricity rates temporarily.”
“As far as the monetary system is concerned, specialists from the Institute for Economic Studies have proposed to stabilize the country’s currency reserves and synchronize the central bank’s refinancing rate with lending rates of commercial banks,” said Qayumov, “Although the refinancing rate has been reduced by 4 percent since January 2008, the lending rates have remained the same.”
Other proposals made by researchers from Institute for Economic Studies concern support for the national budget, real sector of economy as well as creation of additional funds for mitigation of effects of the financial crisis, the director said.
Qayumov also pointed to the necessity of setting independent commission to control targeted use of funds provided by some international financial institutions to support Tajikistan during the financial crisis.
