DUSHANBE, July 25, 2014, Asia-Plus -- According to the findings of the survey conducted by the Agency for Statistics under the President of Tajikistan, current poverty rate in Tajikistan stands at 35.6 percent.

“The survey covers the period from June 1, 2013 to June 1, 2014,” Ms. Gulnora Hasanova, the head the Agency for Statistics, told journalists in Dushanbe on July 25.

According to her, 3,000 households across the country have been surveyed and households with budgets less than 145 somoni a month have been rated as poor families.

“The findings of the survey show that 14 percent of Tajik households last year lived in extreme poverty, because they could not afford to spend more than 104 somoni a month,” Ms. Hasanova said.

She further added that it was their first survey and they had decided to conduct such surveys annually.

We will recall that President Emomali Rahmon noted on November 30, 2013 that Tajikistan’s poverty rate will decrease to 30 percent by 2015 and to 20 percent by 2020.  According to him, this can be reached due to implementation of the Living Standards Improvement Strategy of Tajikistan.

Tajikistan has designed, approved and developed the National Development Strategy up to 2015 and the series of mid-term Poverty Reduction Strategies.  The country has completed the second and the third phases of the poverty reduction strategy (2007-2009 and 2010-2012) and has developed the Living Standards Improvement Strategy of Tajikistan for 2013−2015.

The Living Standards Improvement Strategy of Tajikistan for 2013-2015 years is a concluding phase of a decade of implementation of the National Development Strategy of the Republic of Tajikistan up to 2015; it considers many issues related to achievement of many strategic objectives, such as reform of public administration, maintaining rule of law, demographic projection and planning, regulation of labor migration, development of private sector, supporting middle class.