DUSHANBE, January 31, 2013, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan and Russia are expected to sign a government-to-government agreement on migration cooperation in February.
In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, Safiallo Devonayev, Head of the Migrations Service under the Government of Tajikistan, noted on January 31 that two documents have been worked out on the basis of a memorandum of intent that was signed in Dushanbe last October.
We will recall that Safiallo Devonayev and Konstantin Romodanovsky, director of Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS), signed the memorandum of intent on easing some of the registration restrictions for Tajik migrant workers coming to Russia in Dushanbe on October 5, 2012.
“The first document – an agreement on staying of Tajik nationals in the Russian Federation – provides for extending the period for registration for Tajik nationals on their arrival in Russia from seven to fifteen days,” the migration service agency head told journalists on Thursday. “This documents is expected to be signed by migration services of the two countries within the next two days”
The second document, according to him, provides for extending the term of work permit for Tajik nationals in the Russian Federation from 1½ years to three years. This document is planned to be signed before March 1, 2013, Devonayev noted.
The migration service agency of Tajikistan reports that for all of 2012, 877,335 persons left Tajikistan and 673,434 persons returned.
According to some sources, remittances last year totaled 3.5952 billion USD, which was nearly 48 percent of Tajikistan’s gross domestic product (GDP). Tajikistan’s GDP for 2012 amounted to more than 36.1 billion somoni (equivalent to some 7.6 billion USD).
The monthly report for January 2013,
Monitoring and Early Warning in Tajikistan
, notes that based on historic trends, remittances are expected to drop through March 2013 due to a seasonal reduction in work in Russia due to cold weather, and many migrants are returning home. However, migration levels remain higher than for the same period in 2009-2011, which should lead to higher overall remittances, the report said.
