DUSHANBE, February 22, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Representative office of Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS) hosted a news conference in Dushanbe on February 19.

The press briefing was dedicated to issues related to changes and addenda made to the Russian migration legislation and Konstantin Poltorarin, deputy head of the FMS directorate for international and public relations, was the main speaker to introduce amendments made to the Russian migration legislation.

According to him, some 73,000 Tajik nationals entered the Russian Federation in January this year and some 1 million Tajik citizens are currently staying in Russia.  “In 2009, 954,000 Tajiks entered Russia and more than 450,000 Tajik nationals left the country last year,” Poltoranin noted.

“In 2009, more than 21,000 Tajik citizens get work permits in Russia and 3,000 other Tajiks get work permits in January this year,” said  the FMS official.  “4,276 Tajiks were expelled from Russia in 2009 and 86 others were expelled last month.”

He stressed that Russian had determined its migration policy and the State Duma (Russia’s lower chamber of parliament) would consider amendments to Russia’s federal law on legal status of foreigners within the next few days.

“The bill on amendments to the federal law on legal status of foreigners provides for introduction of patents for foreigners employed in private sector.  They will have to pay monthly state duty of 1,000 Russian rubles; paying this amount, foreign citizen extends patent and migration registration during a year,” said Poltoranin, “In case of successful stay in Russia without administrative infringements, foreign citizen may extend the patent for another six months ”