Correspondents of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” report that over the past two months Turkmenistan’s business owners who have obligations to overseas business partners have been totally barred from converting foreign currency.
The banks had previously converted no more than 2% of the funds available at entrepreneurs’ accounts at the official rate.
Delays did take place but bank employees explained the reasons and promised to carry out conversion and make overseas money transfers later.
However, over the past two months, entrepreneurs, who asked bank employees to provide clarification, have been denied currency conversion transactions.
Contracts with foreign partners were concluded at the time when there were no restrictions pertaining to currency conversion. Pursuant to these contracts, late payment penalties will apply and fines might be imposed in case we do not pay for the services rendered by partners on time, one of the entrepreneurs said.
Entrepreneurs fulfill all the requirements imposed by the banks on a regular basis they pay for and extend patents and every six months they submit copies of reports for the internal revenue service to the banks.
We have long sold the merchandise, paid taxes but we have been unable to settle payments with suppliers. We tried to explain the situation to the bank staff, sought assistance in the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Yet, this has brought about no result, people complain.