DUSHANBE, June 12, 2014, Asia-Plus — Remittance flows from the Russian Federation to Central Asia’s nations, except Kazakhstan, have declined.
According to Russia’s central bank, 644 million U.S. dollars has reportedly been sent through money transfer system to Tajikistan from the Russian Federation in the first quarter of this year, which was 35.7 million U.S. dollars fewer than in the same period last year.
The average sum of the remittances to Tajikistan over the report period has also declined — from 310.00 U.S. dollars in January-March 2013 to 270.00 U.S. dollars in January-March 2014.
Remittance flows from Russia to Uzbekistan have also declined over the same three-month period. Over the report period, 910.4 million U.S. dollars has been remitted from Russia to Uzbekistan, which was 120 million U.S. dollars fewer than in January-March 2013.
In January-March this year, 386.04 million U.S. dollars has been sent through money transfer system from Russia to Kyrgyzstan, 6.2 million U.S. dollars fewer than in the same period last year.
Remittances from Russia to Turkmenistan have also declined over the report period – from 8.7 million U.S. dollars in January-March 2013 to 6.5 million U.S. dollars in January-March this year.
Meanwhile, remittance flows from Russia to Kazakhstan have increased from 87.3 million U.S. dollars in January-March 2013 to 93.2 million U.S. dollars in January-March this year.
We will recall that 4.1543 billion U.S. dollars was sent through money transfer system from Russia to Tajikistan in 2013, which was 520.1 million U.S. dollars more than in 2012.
Labor migrants still remain a critical component in the economy of Tajikistan. Tajik government, however, stopped publishing information on the volume of remittances sent to Tajikistan in May last year. In a report released in Dushanbe, the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) head Abdujabbor Shirinov revealed on July 23, 2013 that Tajikistan will no longer release cash transfer data. According to him, the government stopped publishing information on the volume of remittances sent to Tajikistan in May. “I”d rather not talk about migrants” funds because this issue may be politicized,” Abdujabbor Shirinov said.
