Tajik businesspeople reportedly have to be content with short-term loan carrying high interest rate because long term loan are inaccessible to them.
Tajik banks need foreign capital to provide long-term preferential loans to domestic entrepreneurs. Tajik entrepreneurs have complained about inaccessibility of long-term preferential loans in local banks, noting that it is impossible to do business through short-term loan carrying high interest rate.
In a report released at the scientific symposium titled “Investment Policy of Tajikistan: State and Prospects” in Dushanbe, the deputy head of the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT), Sirojiddin Ikromi, noted on November 30 that Tajik bank are currently not able to provide long-term preferential loans to entrepreneurs.
“Currently, local banks are able to provide only short term loans,” said Ikromi. “Funds attracted by local banks are mainly deposited for a short term. About 80 percent of population’s deposits kept at Tajik banks are made only for one year. Therefore, Tajik banks can provide only short term loans.”
He also noted that seven of eighteen Tajik banks are banks with foreign capital.
According to him, capitals of foreign and international financial institutions are now present in Tajikistan’s banking system: the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) – 6.1 million USD; the China Development Bank (CDB) – 20 million USD; the Asian Development Bank (ADB) – 3.6 million USD; the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) – 58 million USD.
