KHUJAND, June 8, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Decrease in the volumes of labor migrants’ remittances has caused delays in repayment of loans to banks and microlending organizations in the northern Sughd province.

Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Ms. Barbara Kroiter (phonetically spelled), the DED consultant to the Association of Microfinance Organizations in Tajikistan (AMFOT), said that mainly families of labor migrants had been taking loans from microlending organizations in the province on the ground of certificates from banks, to which labor migrants had remitted money.

Decrease in the volumes of labor migrants’ remittances has caused delays in repayment of loans and so-called portfolio-at-risk has occurred in the microfinance portfolio.  Ms. Kroiter noted that the portfolio-at-risk had increased four times compared to 2008 and it now amounted to 5.6 percent of the overall volume of loans.  In the meantime, the portfolio-at-extraordinary-risk has amounted to 24 percent over the first quarter of this year, the consultant said.

Despite this, the number of clients of microfinance lenders in the province increased from 92,332 people in January to 252,151 people in March.

Seventeen microfinance organizations that are members of AMFOT now have head offices in the Sughd province.