KULOB, March 15, 2011, Asia-Plus -- Over the first two months of this year, branches of commercial banks and microfinance organizations operating in Khatlon’s Kulob region have provided 9.603,954 somoni in loans to local farmers, which is 42.4 percent of the overall amount of loans provided by them over the report period, Abdukarim Nematov, head of the branch of the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) in Kulob said.

“Of this amount, 3,355,680 somoni have been provided to gain farmers and 2,617,325 somoni have been provided to cotton producing farms,” Nematov noted.

Over the report period, local banks provided loans 3 million somoni more as compared with January-February 2010, he added.