Over the past three pandemic and postpandemic years, Tajikistan has been able to significantly reduce poverty rate, while in other member nations of the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), the number of low-income families has increased significantly over this difficult period, says the Macroeconomic Review: April 2023 released by the EDB on April 10.
According to data provided by this Review, the poverty rate in Tajikistan stood at 22.5 percent last year (3.8-percent decrease compared to 2019, when, according to the official data, the poverty rate stood at 26.3 percent).
The Review authors clarify that the information they cited is borrowed from the address of the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon to a joint meeting of both chambers of Tajik parliament, which was made on December 23, 2022.
Indeed, President Emomali Rahmon noted in his address that “over the past five years, the population’s well-being has gradually improved and its monetary income increased from 41.1 billion somonis in 2018 to 87 billion somonis in 2022, or in other words, it has increased 2.1 times.
“The average salary increased one and a half times and the size of the maximum pension increased 1.3 times. The above-mentioned actions enabled us to reduce the poverty rate from 27.4 percent in 2018 to 22.5 percent in 2022,” Tajik leader noted.
Meanwhile, the EDB’s Review notes that by the beginning of 2022, the poverty rate in Armenia reached 26.5 percent and the poverty rate in Kyrgyzstan reached 33.3 percent.
Before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the poverty was 23.5 percent in Armenia and 20.1 percent in Kyrgyzstan.
In other EDB member nations, the poverty rate at the end of 2021 was as follows: 4.1 percent in Belarus; 5.2 percent in Kazakhstan; and 11 percent in Russia.
Recall, the Minister of Labor, Migration and Employment of the Population, Ms. Gulnora Hasanzoda, told reporters in Dushanbe on February 13 that over the past two months, the poverty rate in Tajikistan has decreased by 0.9 percent and it now stands at 22.5 percent.
According to data from the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment of the Population (MoLMEP), an average monthly wage in Tajikistan has amounted to 1,730.12 somonis (equivalent to 166.62 US dollars) as of December 1, 2022.
For comparison, an average monthly wage in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan is 605 US dollars and 310 US dollars, respectively.
The poverty rate is the ratio of the number of people (in a given age group) whose income falls below the poverty line; taken as half the median household income of the total population.
