DUSHANBE, October 3, 2013, Asia-Plus -- The draft national budget for 2014 projects expenditure of 1.4 billion somoni on construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP), which is 33 percent more than this year’s budget earmarked for construction of the Roghun HPP.

In all, the draft national budget for 2014 earmarks 2.7232 billion somoni for capital development, which is 16.6 percent more than it was projected by the 2013 national budget.

Of this amount, 1.0302 billion somoni are earmarked for construction of social facilities and 1.4687 billion somoni are projected for construction of economic facilities.

An additional burden on the draft budget for 2014 is repayment of cotton debts, allocation of 71.2 million somoni for recapitalization of Amonatbonk (Tajikistan’s savings bank) and the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT), and payment of interest on government bills.

We will recall that a September 30 meeting of the government considered and endorsed a draft law on the national budget for 2014 and highlights of the national budgets for 2015 and 2016.

Under the draft law on the national budget for 2014, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) will stand at 48.5 billion somoni next year, inflation in 2014 will stand at 7.5 percent and deflation index will stand at 5.9 percent.

A total volume of the national budget for 2014 is expected to stand at 13.901 billion somoni (28.7 percent of GDP), which is 1.8 billion somoni, or 15.3 percent, more compared to this year’s budget.