DUSHANBE, May 26, Asia-Plus -- Based on current data, Tajikistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 5.9 percent in the year to May 1, 2007, reaching 2.7761 billion somonis (equivalent to 807,146,595 US dollars), the State Committee for Statistics said.

For the year to May 1, 2006, the country’s GDP growth was 4.7 percent. 

According to figures provided by the State Committee for Statistics, inflation rate for the first four months of 2007 stood at 2.8 percent, while the country’s foreign trade deficit for the same four-month period amounted to $196.6 million.    

Over the report period, the expenditure part of the national budget has increased by 34.9 percent and amounted to 71.4 percent of the revised plan for the first quarter of 2007.  

As far as consumer prices are concerned, they have risen by 1.7 percent since the beginning of the year.  Compared to January-April 2006, price index of food products has amounted to 101.2 percent.  

The increase in cost of products of the food industry was caused by rise in prices of diary products, bread, wheat flour, potatoes, oil and fat, fishes, onions, carrots, cabbages, apples, etc.  

Non-foodstuffs has fallen in cost on 0.1 percent since the beginning of the year, with the gasoline prices coming down by 6.9 percent.    

The cost of the set of food products included in the consumer basket for actual consumption (based on figures from households studied during 2006) in prices as of the end of February 2007 was 53.01 somonis per one family member per month, and with the norm for a balanced diet it was 112.19 somonis.