DUSHANBE, December 1, 2015, Asia-Plus – The Board of the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) has issued instructions on the procedure of carrying out foreign currency transactions that will come into effect after being officially published, according to the NBT press center.

This document reportedly provides for closure of all currency-exchange points in the country and all foreign currency transactions, including currency exchange transactions, will be carried out at bank service centers, branches of banks in the regions and head offices of lending agencies.

Tajik central bank notes that separate employees of currency-exchange points have overvalued exchange rate of foreign currency using the situation.

The NBT asks citizens to carry out foreign currency transactions only at the abovementioned agencies.

Tajik central bank notes that similar situation emerged in the country in December 2014 as well as in January and April 2015 and the national currency, the somoni, that time fell nearly 18 percent against the dollar.

Tajik central bank in April this year ordered closure of private currency-exchange points.  As a result of the blanket ban on private exchange offices more than half of the country’s exchange offices – 818 out of a total 1,581 – were shuttered, leaving 763 operating.

We will recall that currency-exchange points in Dushanbe have stopped selling U.S. dollars as the U.S. dollar has risen over 7.00 somoni.

On November 29, the market buying rate (the buying rate is the rate at which money dealers buy foreign currency) of USD against TJS in Dushanbe was 1:7.5 and at some currency-exchange it was even 1:7.6.

On November 30, the market buying rate of USD in Dushanbe fell to 1:7.4

Meanwhile, an official exchange rate between USD and TJS set by the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) is 1:6.72.