Finally, we have some good news for Central Asia’s poverty-stricken masses. Remittances are up in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, various sources confirm.
The National Bank of Kyrgyzstan reports that in the first five months of this year, remittances rose 32.6 percent over the same period in 2009 ($398.5 million versus $300.4 million). Most of the money came via banks in Russia and Kazakhstan.
In Tajikistan, in the first four months of 2010, wages sent into the country from workers abroad were up 24 percent over the same period in 2009, according to the UNDP’s senior economist for Europe and Central Asia, Ben Slay.
Slay calls “remittances the best – in many cases, the only – social safety net in Central Asia.”
His office publishes a variety of statistics measuring regional economic trends. The Tajikistan macroeconomic vulnerability database, for example, also demonstrates how the country's industrial output and remittances together took a negative dip throughout 2009, but have both registered positive growth since the beginning of 2010.
Still, experts expect Kyrgyzstan’s economy to continue suffering from the recent unrest. With tens of thousands of Kyrgyzstan's most educated citizens leaving the country with their families, many for good, the country's economic disaster may be long-lasting.
While the numbers are good news in the short-term, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are heavily dependent on these remittances and, therefore, Moscow. In 2008, before the financial crisis, some experts estimated remittances - mostly from Russia - constituted half of Tajikistan’s GDP. The Kremlin has periodically threatened to use work permits for Central Asians as a political lever.
David Trilling is Eurasianet’s managing editor.
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