DUSHANBE, December 11, Asia-Plus –Tajikistan will participate in an International Prod Expo 2008 that will be held in Moscow on February 11-15, 2008, press service of the Trade Promotion Project in Tajikistan told Asia-Plus Tuesday.
Six Tajik companies dealing with processing fruits and vegetables, including limited liability companies Sharbat, Elita-Istaravshan, Nek, as well as production group Nour and Khujand’ cannery, will put on display their achievements in this field at a fair in Moscow.
Saidmoumin Kamolov, national manager of the Trade Promotion Project in Tajikistan, said that participation in the exhibition would give Tajik companies an opportunity to get access to markets of other countries, in particular Russia and Kazakhstan.
Tajikistan’s trade system is particularly vulnerable to external shocks because of its reliance on a few commodities export (cotton, aluminum) but also geographical concentration of its trade. Both for internal as for external reasons a diversification of production is therefore of major importance. As the domestic market is too small to allow the development of sectors based only on national demand, a diversification of exports is crucial for a balanced economic development.
The objective of the Trade Promotion Program in Tajikistan, launched in 2001, is to strengthen the sustainable expansion and diversification of SMEs’ exports from Tajikistan. Interventions are to be demand- driven, and built around three pillars formulated as immediate objectives: to improve the export competitiveness of enterprises in two priority sectors (initially agro-processing) and this at the enterprise level (such as in product design, quality management or marketing); to strengthen “Business Support Services Organizations” through increasing the quality and range of their services that can assist potential and actual exporters in becoming more export competitive; and to improve the business environment for exporters by strengthening the dialogue between stakeholders and public sector, this in the context also of national trade strategies.
In practical manner, the project will aim at achieving improvement for all types of inspections, with a particular focus, in agreement with the relevant State bodies, on tax, sanitary and fire safety inspections. The new project phase had started in 2004.
Implementing agencies are ITC (International Trade Center), UNCTAD/WTO, and Tajik Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. The project is funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
