DUSHANBE, December 11, 2012, Asia-Plus — A meeting of Tajikistan National Development Council (NDC), presided over by President Emomali Rahmon, took place in Dushanbe on December 11.
Speaking at the meeting, Emomali Rahmon noted that Tajikistan’s joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) was a landmark in Tajikistan”s history and laid solid foundations for further promotion of sustainable social and economic growth. “We highly appreciate international community’s support for Tajikistan’s accession to the World Trade Organization,” the president said.
The meeting reportedly reviewed the main aspects of sustainable development, poverty reduction and improvement of living standards in the country.
Rahmon, in particular, pointed to the necessity of going over the poverty reduction strategy that was implemented during the period from 2010 to 2012 again and discussing key aspects of the poverty strategy designed for the coming three years.
“Due to constructive cooperation with development partners, Tajikistan has managed to overcome the main problems during the years of independence,” noted the head of state. “Continuation of social and economic reforms, implementation of strategic tasks as well as measures taken to ensure macroeconomic stability have allowed maintaining an average annual economic growth at the rate of 7.0 percent since 2000.”
The president stressed that strategic objectives of Tajikistan included ensuring energy independence and food security as well as finding a way out of the communication impasse
Speaking at the meeting, Ms Cihan Sultanoglu, UN Assistant Secretary-General &Director/Regional Bureau for Europe and CIS at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reportedly noted that Tajikistan’s national development strategy should comply with international concerted development goals.
Making special mention of achievements gained by the country over the past decade, she stressed that since 2003, the level of relative poverty has fallen from 83 to 43 percent and the level of absolute poverty has fallen from 43 to 17 percent.
