DUSHANBE, July 6, 2009, Asia-Plus — The population of Tajikistan may reach 8 million people by 2010, Chairman of the State Committee for Statistics (SCS) Mirgand Shabozov announced at a press conference in Dushanbe at the end of last week.
According to him, the current population of the country is more than 7.5 people and 73 percent of them live in rural areas.
“Specialists expect the country’s population to reach 7.6 million people by next month and 8 million by the end of this year,” the SCS head said, noting that the current population growth rate in Tajikistan is 2.1 to 2.2 percent and more than 50 percent of Tajikistan’s population is people under the age of 50.
Shabozov further added that according to official data, not more than 400,000 Tajik nationals currently worked outside the country. “According to data provided by some international organizations, Tajikistan has more than 1 million labor migrants abroad; however, these figures do not correspondent to the facts,” said Shabozov, “We regularly receive data about our labor migrants from Russia’s Federal Migration Service.”
On the labor migrant’s remittances, the SCS head noted that migrant remittances that have benefited all sectors of society and could have a potentially high development impact especially on poor households have considerably decreased this year. “Over the first six months of 2008, labor migrants remitted 1.25 billion U.S. dollars to banks in Tajikistan, while over the same six-month period of this year, labor migrants’ to the country have decreased by more than 50 percent,” Shabozov said.
