DUSHANBE, April 23, 2014, Asia-Plus – Last year alone, residents of Tajikistan spent more than 1.7 billion somoni on mobile phone calls and hundreds of millions of somoni on purchase of new mobile phones, President Emomali Rahmon noted in his annual address to the parliament on Aril 23.

According to him, a total number of mobile phone in Tajikistan is now more than ten million.

Moreover, Tajikistan’s residents last year spent 1.4 billion somoni on buying cars, the president said.  “It is 350 million U.S. dollars.  For example, the country’s national budget for 2001 amounted to only 340 million somoni,” Rahmon noted.

He further added that the structure of household expenses had changed due to increase in the population money incomes.

“in 2001, 84 percent of household expenses were spent on food products and only 16 percent of household budget were spent on non-foodstuffs,” said Rahmon.  “Today, these indices practically became equal.”