DUSHANBE, January 20, 2011, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan’s state debt to Uzbekistan is economically unfounded, Tajik Railways head Amonullo Hukumov said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, the debt has been accrued mainly due to Uzbek gas deliveries to Tajikistan. “Using the unstable situation that occurred in Tajikistan in the early 1990s, Uzbek were deceiving us in every possible way,” said Hukumov, “Thus, Abdumalik Abdullojonov who was prime minister at that time singed an agreement with Uzbekistan on gas deliveries and under that agreement, the price of 1,000 cubic meters of Uzbek natural gas for Tajikistan was US$85.00, while the international price of 1,000 cubic meters of gas was US$30.00 at that time.”
“Besides, in 1991-1994 Uzbeks did not pay us for rail transit from the central part of Uzbekistan to its eastern regions via our territory, justifying that by writing off Tajikistan’s debts. The annual cost of transit was US$100 million, while our debt amounted to only US$240 million,” the Tajik rail company top manager noted.
He said that Tajik Railways was paying up to 20 million somoni every year from 1994 to 2010 to service the state debt to Uzbekistan. “Tajikistan’s state debt to Uzbekistan now amounts to 32.4 million somoni.”
Hukumov added that since Tajik Railways had serviced the debt during 16 years Tajikistan’s Ministry of Finance now owed 272 million somoni to the rail company. “Besides, we have lost US$55 million as a result of devaluation of the Tajik national currency.”
According to him, Tajik Railways’ accounts receivable are now US$100 million, while its accounts payable are only US$25.9 million.
We will recall that the Ministry of Finance recently reported that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan signed an agreement on the third restructuring of Tajikistan’s debt at the end of last year and under that agreement, the term of repayment of Tajikistan’s debt to Uzbekistan was extended until the end of 2015. In 2011-2013, Tajikistan will repay US$4.8 million per year, in 2014 US$10 million and in 2015 US$8 million. It is the debt accrued since 1997, when Uzbekistan provided a loan to Tajikistan following signing of a government-to-government agreement between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on mutual settlement of accounts for cargo and gas shipments as well as communications services, the source said, noting that the remaining US$32.4 million of the loan will be repaid from the national budget.
