Tajikistan

Tajikistan is seeking to tap the international bond market for the first time, kicking off what bankers anticipate will be a blitz of emerging market bond issuance. The central Asian nation is looking to issue 10-year, dollar-denominated debt, the Financial Times reported. It could come to the market as early as next week, according to a person familiar with the finance ministry’s thinking, in what could be the first emerging market sovereign debt deal since the summer break.

Tajikistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, is discussing a possible International Monetary Fund bailout programme worth as much as $500m as its economy suffers the fallout from Russia’s recession. Jamoliddin Nuraliev, deputy head of Tajikistan’s central bank, told the Financial Times that the IMF could lend to the central Asian country under its extended-credit facility and that $500m would be a “reasonable” amount, although he added the government had not yet decided whether to make a formal request for assistance. “We are in a dialogue with the fund,” he said.