KULOB, April 19, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Over the first three months of this year, branches of commercial banks and microfinance organizations functioning in the Kulob zone, Khatlon province have provided 24,133,655 somoni in loans, which is 9 million somoni more than January-March 2009, Abdukarim Nematov, head of the branch of the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) in Kulob, told Asia-Plus today.

“9,759,712 somoni, or 40.4 percent of the overall volume of loans provided in January-March 2010, have been given to local farming units,” said Nematov, “44.3 percent of this amount has been given to grain growers, 26 percent to livestock breeders, 15.4 percent to cotton farmers and 5.1 percent to vegetable growers.”

39.5 percent of loans has been provided to local commercial organizations and 10.9 percent of loans has been given to local industrial, transportation and communications enterprises as well as labor migrants, he noted.