DUSHANBE, October 16, 2010, Asia-Plus — Over the first nine months of this year, the external trade turnover of Tajikistan, including electrical power and natural gas, has amounted to 2.6342 billion U.S. dollars, which was 103.6 percent of the January-September 2009 level or 92.2 million U.S. dollars more, according to the Agency for Statistics under the President of Tajikistan.
The trade balance was negative and amounted to 1.0077 billion US dollars.
Exports of goods in January-September 2010 amounted to 813.3 million US dollars, which was 14.0 percent, or 100 million U.S. dollars, more than in the same period last year.
Imports of goods into the country over the report period amounted to 1.8209 billion U.S. dollars, which was 0.4 percent, or 7.9 million dollars, fewer than in January-September 2009.
Compared to August 2010, exports and imports increased last month by 12.4 and 16.7 percent respectively.
In January-September 2010, Tajikistan had trade relations with 97 countries of the world, including 10 CIS nations.
Over the report, period the CIS countries accounted for 43.9 percent (1.1551 billion dollars) of Tajikistan’s external trade turnover and the far abroad countries accounted for 56.1 percent (1.4791 billion dollars) of the country’s external trade turnover.
Electrical power accounted for 0.5 percent of Tajikistan’s external trade turnover in the report period. In January-September this year, Tajikistan exported 136.8 million kWh of electricity for 2.7546 million U.S. dollars. Over the same period, Tajikistan imported 285.6 million kWh of electrical power for 10.9345 million U.S. dollars.
Over the same nine-month period, Tajikistan imported 132.5 million cubic meters of natural gas from Uzbekistan for 31.2 million U.S. dollars.
Share of cotton fiber accounted for 11.2 percent of Tajikistan’s exports in January-September 2010. Over the report period, Tajikistan exported 59,100 tons of cotton fiber for 90.7 million U.S. dollars, which is 4,600 tons and 33.2 million U.S. dollars more than in the same period last year.
The main trading partners of Tajikistan in regard to its cotton were: Russia – 27.3 percent; Turkey – 25.9 percent; Iran – 22.9 percent; Pakistan – 8.2 percent; Latvia – 5.2 percent; Ukraine – 5.0 percent; Moldova – 2.4 percent; Uzbekistan – 1.8 percent; and Belarus – 1.2 percent.
Compared to January-September 2009, an average price of one ton of cotton fiber increased by US$479 and amounted to US$1,536.
