DUSHANBE, February 4, 2014, Asia-Plus /Payrav Chorshanbiyev/ -- Referring to the preliminary data from Tajikistan’s banks, the Agency for Statistics under the President of Tajikistan notes that physical entities remitted 20.1 billion somoni (equivalent to some 4.2 billion USD) to banks in Tajikistan last year, which is nearly 12 percent more compared to 2012.

In 2012, physical entities reportedly remitted 17.6 billion somoni (equivalent to nearly 3.7 billion USD) to banks in Tajikistan.

In 2013, remittances reportedly amounted to 49.6 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), which stood last year at little more than 40.5 billion somoni.  

We will recall that Tajikistan took the second place among the CIS nations last year in terms of money transfers out of Russia, and Uzbekistan was in the lead in this area.  

Labor migrants still remain a critical component in the economy of Tajikistan.  Tajik officials, however, claim that major part of remittances is small export earnings; for example, earnings from export of druid fruits.

Tajik government stopped publishing information on the volume of remittances sent to Tajikistan in May last year.  In a report released in Dushanbe, the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) head Abdujabbor Shirinov revealed on July 23, 2013 that Tajikistan will no longer release cash transfer data.  According to him, the government stopped publishing information on the volume of remittances sent to Tajikistan in May.  “I''d rather not talk about migrants'' funds because this issue may be politicized,” Abdujabbor Shirinov said.