Tag Archives: Tajikistan

Tajikistan bans flag import

MAY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikstandard, a government agency, proposed a ban on imports of Tajik flags made in Turkey or China. Abdukakhor Mavlonzoda, the head of Tajikstandard, told US-funded RFE/RL that foreign-made flags carry an important mistake in the way the crown at the centre of the flag is displayed. The ban could come in handy for the government’s nation building agenda.

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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Tajik university staff face salary problems

MAY 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Staff at the Kulob State University, in southern Tajikistan, said they are preparing a lawsuit against Tojiksodirotbonk (TSB), the country’s second largest lender, for failing to pay wages in Jan.-Feb. 2016. Tajikistan’s Central Bank placed TSB under a caretaker administration last week. Days after the teacher’s protest, TSB said it had resumed paying out salaries owed to its clients. The wages arrears is more evidence of the liquidity problem in Tajik banks.

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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Tajikistan’s Airline receives safety certificate

MAY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s airline company Somon Air received a safety certificate (Operational Safety Audit, IOSA) from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the first Tajik carrier to comply with industry standards. Contacted by The Bulletin, IATA said that Somon Air has not yet applied for membership. Kazakhstan’s Air Astana and Uzbekistan Airways are the only two Central Asian IATA members.

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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Thousands of Tajik students march through Khujand in support of Rakhmon

DUSHANBE, MAY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tens of thousands of students marched through Khujand, north Tajikistan, in support of constitutional changes that will extend the powers of President Emomali Rakhmon.

The authorities organised the demonstration, highlighting how they are increasingly using students to manipulate politics. Student rallies have previously been used to demonstrate outside embassies of countries where Tajik opposition activists have fled to.

Blocking roads, students marched through Khujand chanting: “We are with you, the Leader of Nation. Youth are for the country’s stable development.”

A Dushanbe-based analyst, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the authorities were using students to try to show how popular Mr Rakhmon is.

“Students are forced to rally. If they don’t obey, they will be kicked out of their universities and if they protest against the agitations, they are called traitors and imprisoned,” he said.

A referendum, planned for May 22, will scrap limits on presidential terms, lower the age a person can run for president to 30 from 35 and ban parties with religious affiliations.

Mr Rakhmon is hedging his bets. After the constitutional changes are approved through the referendum, and nobody doubts that this will be passed, he will be allowed to run Tajikistan for as long as he likes. And, by lowering the age a person can become president, he is also potentially allowing his son, who will be 33-years-old at the next presidential election in 2020, to take over

As for banning political parties with religious associations, the now banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan had been the main opposition group until its leaders were arrested or forced into exile last year.

Jamshed, a 22-year-old Tajik student, told the Conway Bulletin’s correspondent in Dushanbe that the authorities had forced the students to demonstrate in a faux show of support for President Rakhmon.

“I was told to prepare a speech in Russian language about the importance of referendum and speak during a state TV roundtable program,” he said. “Government officials checked my speech and then let me present it.”

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

World Bank mulls Tajik hydropower help

MAY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Bank said it would consider funding the modernisation of the Nurek hydropower plant in central Tajikistan. Located 70km east of Dushanbe, the 3,000 MW plant at Nurek produces around 70% of Tajikistan’s total electricity output. Earlier in May, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon said it needs an investment of more than 4.7bn somoni (around $600m).

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Is Tajikistan preparing to unleash its Nashi?

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — So, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the authorities in Tajikistan are using students to promote their causes.

Excellent reporting from our ‘Man in Dushanbe’ has exposed this practice. He has spoken to several students who have said their universities and teachers have forced them to either march in favour of government policies or demonstrate outside the embassies of countries which have irritated President Emomali Rakhmon by giving his enemies sanctuary.

This is a well-worn strategy in the former Soviet Union. When I was a correspondent in Moscow between 2006-9 I reported heavily on the growth of a youth group called Nashi and its various offshoots. Nashi was effectively a massive mobilisation of Russian youth, often whipped up into a frenzy to support various policies promoted by Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev, who was the Russian President at the time.

Their summer camps, set up in the dense forests of northern Russia, were an eye-opener. Pictures of opposition activists dressed up as prostitutes were placed around the site. In Moscow, Nashi rallies were rowdy affairs, nationalistic and with a violent undercurrent.

The movement in Tajikistan hasn’t reached these proportions yet and is less sophisticated but the authorities are still unleashing, while trying to control, the same forces.

It’s a crude, dangerous technique.

BANKING ISSUES

Sticking with Tajikistan, news that the country’s second largest bank has been placed under administration doesn’t come as a surprise. TSB has been listing heavily for a while. The strains on the Tajik economy have just become too great and it was only a matter of time before something gave. The important issue to monitor now is whether this is contagious and other Tajik banks also cave in.

It’s also important to keep the banking failure in context. The Tajik banking system may be weaker than its neighbours but all the Central Asian economies have been under the same pressures. Remittances from Russia have dried up, currencies have halved in value and GDP growth rates are being revised down. These banks were giving out soft loans for years and many of these will have turned bad.

If a bank in Tajikistan effectively says it doesn’t have any more money left, could banks in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan be experiencing the same problem?

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Afghan protest shows sensitivity of power line routes from Turkmenistan

MAY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Thousands of Hazara, a minority group in Afghanistan, marched through Kabul to protest against the re-routing of a section of a power line that will transmit electricity from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The protests shows just how sensitive the issue of routing various power lines and pipelines through Afghanistan has become as they generate income for communities. As well as this power line, Afghanistan will also host a power line dubbed

CASA-1000 which will send power to Pakistan from Tajikistan and the TAPI pipeline which will pump Turkmen gas to India

The government has said a route change for the Turkmenistan-Pakistan power line would cut costs.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Tajik migration slows by 10%

MAY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Tajik ministry of labour said that outbound migration decreased by 10% in the first four months of 2016, compared to the same period last year. Around 200,000 Tajik labour migrants left the country in Jan.-April 2016. Around 87% of the migrants are men. Most of them head to Russia for work. Remittances from migrants are an important part of Tajikistan’s economy.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Tajik ministers says everyone should have flag

MAY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ramadan Rakhimzoda, the Tajik minister of internal affairs, said that every Tajik household should fly a national flag as proof of patriotism. The flag is an important item in the construction of Tajikistan’s national identity. In 2011, for the twentieth anniversary of Tajikistan’s independence, President Emomali Rakhmon ordered what was then the tallest flagpole in the world to be built in Dushanbe.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Tajik government steps in to save bank from going bust

DUSHANBE, MAY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s Central Bank placed Tojiksodirotbank (TSB) under its administration after the bank said it was on the brink of going bankrupt, the first major banking casualty of the current economic downturn.

TSB is the second-largest lender in the country and manages around a third of all loans in Tajikistan. Its collapse has shaken policymakers.

A senior official at the Central Bank, Mirzokhayota Yodgorov, replaced the bank’s chairman, Tojid- din Pirzoda. Sources in the banking sector also told local media that the EBRD could step in and inject vital cash into TSB.

“The question as to whether the EBRD will enter TSB’s capital will be resolved in June,” the source, quoted by Asia Plus, said.

According to the latest, unconfirmed, updates, the EBRD plans to buy a majority stake in the bank for $165m. The Tajik government could also step in and buy a 25% stake.

Earlier in May, TSB had said it was in talks to sell half of its shares to the EBRD.

Neither the EBRD nor the Tajik Central Bank commented but Tojiksodirotbank did release a fairly oblique statement confirming it had been placed under administration.

“The National Bank of Tajikistan Board in accordance with Articles 48, 49 and 50 of its Laws, to improve the financial situation of Tojiksodirotbank and protect the rights of its depositors and creditors on 18th May 2016 appointed a temporary administration in the bank for three months,” it said in a statement.

The banking sector in Tajikistan, hit by a deep economic downturn, has accumulated overdue loans and is faced with cash shortages. An IMF delegation earlier this year said that some of Tajikistan’s biggest banks were on the brink of default.

Tajikistan’s financial sector is under stress because the value of remittances from migrant workers has shrunk significantly over the past two years, undermining the economy and, crucially, hitting customers’ ability to pay back their loans.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)