DUSHANBE, February 17, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Work on establishment of the credit bureau in Tajikistan must be speeded up, Sarvar Kholiqov, head of the department for protection of entrepreneurs’ rights within the State Committee for Investments and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest), told Asia-Plus today.

According to him, relevant bodies must take efforts to ensure that the credit bureau will begin to work in the first quarter of this year.

“Tajikistan adopted the law on credit history last year and even a working group for establishment of the credit bureau was set up; however, governmental bodies and the country’s banking sector have not taken any serious measures in this direction yet,” Kholiqov said, noting that the credit bureau would improve entrepreneurs’ access to long-term loans.

“Most of Tajik businesspeople complain about poor access to long-term loans, you know,” said the GosKomInvest official, “The other problem is high interest rates.  I think loans should be provided to entrepreneurs for the period of 5 to 10 years so that they will be able to develop their businesses”        

 A credit bureau is a company that collects information from various sources and provides consumer credit information on individual consumers for a variety of uses. It is an organization providing information on individuals borrowing and bill paying habits.   This helps lenders assess credit worthiness, the ability to pay back a loan, and can affect the interest rate and other terms of a loan.  Interest rates are not the same for everyone, but instead can be based on risk-based pricing, a form of price discrimination based on the different expected risks of different borrowers, as set out in their credit rating.  Consumers with poor credit repayment histories or court adjudicated debt obligations like tax liens or bankruptcies will pay a higher annual interest rate than consumers who don''t have these factors.