DUSHANBE
, October 5, 2012, Asia-Plus — Over the past nine months of this year, the volume of money in circulation in the country has increased by 370 million somoni, according to the National Bank of Tajikistan.
“In January, some 2.98 billion somoni were in circulation in Tajikistan and this amount decreased by more than 10 million in March,” said an official source at Tajik central bank.
“Today, 3.35 billion somoni are in circulation in the country.”
“These figures are evidence of the fact that part of the population and enterprises prefer payment in cash and the volume of money in bank circulation has decreased,” Sergey Bondarenko, the head of the Tajikistan Free Market Center Public Association, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
“Secondly, it is autumn now and the inflow of money from migrants is increasing,” noted Bondarenko.
“These funds are coming in foreign currencies.
They are exchanged in currency exchange offices and go mainly to consume market.
That is why the amount of cash outside banks has been increasing.”
According to him the third reason for increase in the volume of cash is increase in money supply (the total amount of money available in the economy).
Meanwhile, banking expert Bahrom Shodiyev noted that to-date Tajikistan’s money supply has stood at more than 5 billion somoni.
He said that the fact that cash outside of banks represents 70 percent of the total money supply evokes serious concern.
“This is the reason for inflation,” Shodiyev added.
