Uzbekistan’s Open Join-Stock Company (OJSC) Uzpromstroybank has carried out the first transactions within the framework of agreements concluded with Tajik banks last year.
Uzpromstroybank’s press center says the first transactions worth 5 million U.S. dollars have been carried out within the framework of partnership with Tajikistan’s OJSC Orienbonk and OJSC Bank Eskhata.
These funds have reportedly been used to finance export of goods of the Uzbek metallurgical plant to Tajikistan.
Last year, Uzpromstroybank also signed an agreement with Amonatbonk (Tajikistan’s saving bank) on providing 33 million U.S. dollars in preferential loans to Tajik entrepreneurs working in both countries.
Last week, Amonatbonk and Uzpromstroybank signed in Tashkent an additional agreement on making amendments to the agreement that was concluded between the two countries last year.
Meanwhile, against the backcloth of ongoing depreciation of the Tajik national currency, the somoni, Tajik national prefer to take loans in the national currency.
“Since Uzbekistan provides the preferential loans in dollars, our entrepreneurs are not in a hurry to take these loans,” Amonatbonk head Sirojddin Ikromi told reporters in Dushanbe in February this year.
Besides, Ikromi attributes unwillingness of Tajik entrepreneurs to take Uzbek loans to the fact that the Uzbek side provides exclusively goods but not cash.
Recall, Amonatbonk and Uzbekistan’s National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity as well as Tajikistan’s Bank Eskhata and Uzbekistan’s Asaka signed cooperation agreements in March last year.
Under these agreements, Uzbekistan is expected to extend US$100 million worth of credit to develop enterprises working in both countries. The loan will be provided to Tajikistan for import of Uzbek goods.
The documents provide for launching special credit lines at Amonatbonk and Eskhata Bank for implementation of the trade financing projects for the purpose of increasing the export of Uzbekistan’s goods and services (textiles, building materials, food products, household chemical goods, farm produce, electrical equipment, vehicles, etc.) to Tajikistan.
It is to be noted that Uzbekistan signed a similar agreement with Kyrgyzstan during Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov’s visit to Tashkent in December 2017.
A separate agreement was concluded in early February last year between Uzbekistan’s Uzpromstroybank and Asaka and Kyrgyzstan’s RSK Bank and Aiyl Bank on conditions for provision of this money.
The first contract worth US$600,000 on delivery of Uzbek agricultural machines to Kyrgyzstan was signed in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, in mid-February last year.
