Tajikistan’s external debt makes more than $2 billion at the beginning of 2016

Almaty. February 2. Silkroadnews - Volume of external debt of Tajikistan at the beginning of 2016 exceeds $2 billion, the Tajik news agency (TajikTA) reports.
“The total amount of external debt of Tajikistan at the beginning of this year amounted to $2 bln 182.65 mln, representing 27.8% of the nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of the country,” - said the Deputy Finance Minister of the republic Jamshed Karimzoda at the press conference in Dushanbe.
According to him, at the beginning of last year, the external debt made 22.5% of GDP.
The growth of external debt to GDP over the past year is explained, as D.Karimzoda says, by the decline in real GDP versus the planned targets and rise of dollar against the national currency.
D.Karimzoda emphasized that about $145 million has been allocated to provide the debt management, taking into account the debt of the National Bank of Tajikistan to the International Monetary Fund and the debt with a government guarantee.
In particular, more than $113.1 million has been directed to provide the payment of the principal.  
It was also noted that last year the country has fully repaid the debt owed to the neighboring Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (at the beginning of 2015 the remaining part of the debt to Uzbekistan amounted to about $8 million, and to Kazakhstan - $12.2 million).
Meanwhile, China still remains to be the major creditor of Tajikistan, with the debt exceeding $950 million.
Also, the country has relatively large debts to the World Bank (more than $325 million) and the Asian Development Bank ($277 million).