BISHKEK (TCA) — U.S. Marines delivered toys and other donations from the U.S. Embassy Community in Bishkek to children of the SOS Children’s Village, a nongovernmental charitable organization providing services for children in Kyrgyzstan without parental care. The donations were made on December 14 through the Marine “Toys for Tots” Program which occurs every year around the world, the U.S. Embassy in Kyrgyzstan said on December 20.

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NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and RG Brands (RGB), a leading food and beverage group in Kazakhstan, have signed a $20 million loan to modernize operations along the company’s regional distribution chain. The assistance will improve the livelihoods of shopkeepers and support women’s empowerment in Kazakhstan and in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, ADB’s Country Office in Kazakhstan said on December 20.

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KABUL (TCA) — On December 19, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation and completed the sixth and final review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Completion of this review enables the disbursement of SDR 5.38 million (about US$ 7.4 million). The three-and-half year ECF arrangement for SDR 32.38 million (about US$44.7 million or 10 percent of Afghanistan’s quota in the IMF) was approved by the IMF Executive Board on July 20, 2016, to support the government’s reform efforts and to help catalyze donor funding.

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ASHGABAT (TCA) — Multilateral consultations on the development of the UN Special Programme for the countries of the Aral Sea basin took place in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan on December 19. The meeting was organized in accordance with the final Joint Communique of the Summit of the Founders of IFAS held in Turkmenistan last August and with the Resolutions on “Cooperation between the United Nations and the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea” (IFAS) adopted by the UN General Assembly at the initiative of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov in 2018 and 2019, the State News Agency of Turkmenistan reported.

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DUSHANBE (TCA) — The amount of money sent home by Tajik labor migrants from Russia in January-September of this year exceeded Tajikistan’s annual budget, Avesta news agency reported.

During the first nine months of this year, Tajik labor immigrants in Russia sent home US $2.49 billion, a 7-percent growth on-year.

According to Tajikistan’s Finance Ministry, the country’s state budget in January-November 2019 amounted to 20.568 billion somoni or more than US $2.1 billion according to the official exchange rate of the Tajik National Bank.

The total state budget of Tajikistan for 2019 from all sources of financing is 23.7 billion somoni or more than US $2.448 billion.

That means that during the first three quarters of this year, Tajiks working in Russia sent home the amount exceeding their home country’s annual budget.

It was earlier reported that remittances from labor migrants abroad account for more than 75 percent of all income of Tajikistan’s population.

NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — Kazakhstan’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth is projected at 4.0% for 2019, before easing to 3.7% in 2020, according to the World Bank’s latest Kazakhstan Economic Update.

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