After the payment of the debt "the gas supply to Tajikistan has increased to three million cubic meters a day," the report said quoting an official from the Uzbek company Uztransgas as saying.

Uzbek gas supplies to Tajikistan were cut by a third earlier this year because of debts, causing blackouts amid freezing winter weather in the mountainous Central Asian state.

Uzbekistan raised the price of gas to Tajikistan from US$100 per 1,000 cubic metres in 2007 to US$145 per 1,000 cubic metres for 2008. Tajikistan depends almost entirely on energy imports from Uzbekistan.