Expectations of international financial institutions regarding the reduction of remittances from Russia to the Central Asian nations due to the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict have not yet been met, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Director General for Central and West Asia Yevgeniy Zhukov told Asia-Plus yesterday at a briefing in Incheon, Republic of Korea in the framework of the ADB 56th Annual Meeting.
“When the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict began last year, our projections on the economic growth and remittances [from Russia] to Central Asia were very pessimistic,” Mr. Zhukov noted.
According to him, experts from ADB, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions expected that “the Russian economy would suffer very badly and these remittances would be greatly reduced.”
“In fact, we see that these fears have not been realized. At least until now, Russia has managed to defend its economy, and this led to the fact that the flow of labor migrants from Central Asia to Russia is still going on,” the ADB official emphasized.
“Meanwhile, the conflict is going on and nobody knows how long it will last and what impact it will have on the Russian economy in the medium term, and especially in the long term,” he said.
He further noted that ADB experts are closely monitoring the situation with labor migration from Central Asia’s nations to the Russian Federation in the context of the Russian Ukrainian crisis and inflow of remittances from Russia to the Central Asian countries.
Zhukov also said that the problem is that these remittances now have two components: labor migrants’ remittances and remittances from Russian citizens who have temporarily moved to the Central Asian nations.
“It is difficult for our economists to separate these two flows, but we will monitor these remittances,” ADB Director General for Central and West Asia added.
It is to be noted that labor migrants are still a critical component in the economy of Tajikistan and they keep many struggling families at home above the poverty line.
ADB’s report released in September last year notes that remittances have a significant social impact since more than 50% of households (about 735,000) rely primarily on remittances for the consumption of food and basic necessities, and are mostly located in the poorest regions and districts of the country.
