DUSHANBE, August 9, Asia-Plus, Asia-plus  -- The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has prepared contracts for placement of temporarily surplus funds raised from the sale of shares in open joint-stock company (OJSC) NBO Roghun and sent them to five Tajik banks, Deputy Finance Minister, Jamshed Norinov, told Asia-Plus today.

According to him, five commercial banks that offered annual interest rates of 9 percent have been selected for placement of Roghun’s temporarily surplus funds -- Agroinvestbonk, Tojik Sodirot Bonk (TSB), Bonki Rushdi Tojikiston (Tajikistan Development Bank or TDB), Tajprombank, and Fononbank.

“114 million somoni are placed at Agroinvestbonk, 20 million somoni at TSB, 2.7 million somoni at TDB, 88.3 million somoni to Tajprombank, and 5 million somoni at Fononbank,” the deputy minister said.

“The mentioned funds (230 million somoni) are already kept at accounts of these banks but they cannot use them for any loan operations without concluding the contract,” Norinov noted, adding that the funds will be placed at the banks for one year.

In the meantime, the mentioned banks noted that they have not yet received the contracts.

The sale of Roghun shares to the public and donations made by individuals and businesspeople has earned the government 819,249,400 somoni (equivalent to more than 185 million U.S. dollars) by June 10, 2010.

To raise funds to complete construction of the Roghun HPP the government started to sell shares in Roghun to people on January 6 this year.  Tajikistan has issued 6 billion somoni (US$1.37 billion) worth of Roghun shares.