DUSHANBE, December 11, 2009, Asia-Plus — The government is not going to write off last year’s debs for cotton producing farms, Safar Mahmadiyev, the head of the economic policy and prognosis department within the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, farming units must pay off cotton loans received last year by themselves. “The government has repeatedly postponed the 2008 debt repayments for cotton farmers,” Mahmadiyev said.
In 2008, the government gave a 140 million somoni credit to cotton farmers through a number of banks and only some 68 percent (95.14 million somoni) of that has been repaid so far. “Because of this, banks have provided only 97 million somoni of a 180 million government credit to cotton producing farms this year,” the MoA official noted.
Besides, farming units now also owe some 195 million somoni for water and electricity consumptions, Mahmadiyev added.
We will recall that in January 2008, the government gave a 140 million somoni credit to cotton farmers through Amonatbonk (40 million somoni), Agroinvestbonk (50 million somoni), Orienbonk (35 million somoni), Tojik Sodirot Bonk (5 million somoni), Tajikistan Development Bank (5 million somoni), and Tajprombank (5 million somoni). The loans were supposed to be paid off by April 1, 2009.
In March this year, Agroinvestbonk appealed to the government, asking to postpone debt repayments for cotton farmers until the end of the year. Agroinvestbonk justified its request for postponement of debt repayments by saying that the fall in the international price of cotton and in demand for the product has hurt many Tajik farmers. The government agreed to extend the debt repayment term until November 1, 2009, while banks now ask the government to postpone debt repayments until July 1, 2010.
