The Tajik authorities have decided to provide financial support to the national air carrier Tajik Air by mutual settlement with its creditors.
Government’s decree issued on June 25, in particular, notes that some 19 million somoni (equivalent to 1.8 million U.S. dollars) of Tajik Air’s debts will be written off through tax concessions to its creditors.
It means that creditors will write off part of Tajik Air’s debt, and in return, they will be exempted from paying taxes for comparable amounts.
Thus, a 13.3 million somoni debt of Tajik Air to the Standart-Ijora microleasing organization and a more than 5.6 million debt of Tajik Air to Sughurtai Asri 21 (insurance company) will be written off.
Recall, Tajik Air suspended it operations early last year, stopping flights practically on all air routes.
Tajik Air has been experiencing various problems for a long time but they showed up more sharply ahead of the New Year holidays, when the airlines began postponing flights for several days. On January 1, 2019, the carrier announced it was cancelling flights on its Dushanbe-Moscow route until the end of January. Since then, the scale of Tajik Air’s troubles has only deepened, and the airline was forced to make changes to its flight schedule. Tajik Air then sent its staff members on leave without pay.
A state commission was set up to investigate the current condition of the airline. The commission is presided over by Prime Minister Rasoul Qohirzoda.
The national airline has experienced great financial difficulties since the end of the zero years. Specialists of the airline say that in such conditions the carrier turned out to be due to high prices for jet fuel and the unstable economic situation.
Tajik Air resumed flights after half a year idle in July last year. On July 26, 2019, Tajik Air’s Boeing 767 carried a group of Tajik Hajj pilgrims from Khujand, the capital of Sughd province, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In August, the national air carrier resumed its scheduled flights to Moscow.
