DUSHANBE, October 24, 2008, Asia-Plus — We hope today’s forum will give a new impulse to further expansion of economic cooperation between Tajikistan and Russia, President Emomali Rahmon remarked, while inaugurating the Third Tajik-Russian Forum “Tajikistan-Russia: Potential of Tajik-Russia Interregional Cooperation” in Dushanbe today.
According to him, cooperation between the two countries is expanding. “The Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric power plant, which has been constructed in cooperation with Russia, will be finished soon,” Emomali Rahmon said.
The Tajik leader noted that Russia accounted for 20 percent of Tajikistan’s external trade turnover. “Russia has also accounted for 60 percent of investments made in Tajikistan over the first nine months of this year,” he said.
However, cooperation between the two countries in field of agriculture is not yet at proper level. “We will not able to gain a great deal by just holding of agricultural exhibitions,” President Rahmon said.
He called on Russian companies and investment funds to work more actively in Tajikistan, noting that Tajikistan is still waiting for proposals from Russian on extraction of uranium in Tajikistan and processing of it.
He noted that the two previous forums had not yielded right results. “I hope decisions made at this forum will be implemented by both sides,” the president said.
The forum members include Tajik and Russian MPs, regional administrators, experts and businesspeople of the two countries.
Issue related to improvement of legal foundation of economic cooperation between the regions of the country will be among the major topics of the Dushanbe forum.
The forum is also dedicated to consider state and prospects of further expansion of economic, social and humanitarian cooperation between Tajikistan and Russia at the level of regions as well as legal regulation of legal migration processes.
A roundtable meeting will be held on sidelines of the forum to discuss constructive mechanisms of professional training of working personnel, improvement of skills of teachers of the Russian language in Tajikistan and training of skilled personnel for Tajikistan at Russian universities.
Tomorrow, the forum will continue its work in Khujand, the capital of the Sughd province.
The forum is expected to result in signing of number of cooperation documents between regions of the two countries.
Some specialists expect the forum to give a new impulse to further expansion cooperation between the two countries and bilateral trade between them to reach US$1 billion in 2009.
According to data provided by the State Committee for Statistics, a two-way trade between Tajikistan and the Russian Federation over the first nine months of this year has amounted to US$864.199 million. This consisted of Tajikistan’s exports to Russia estimated at US$88.5 million and Tajikistan’s imports from Russia worth US$775.696 million.
