DUSHANBE, July 27, Asia-Plus — National Human Development Report for 2007, authored by experts from the Research Center Sharq was presented in Dushanbe on July 27.
Mainly based on survey of shadow economy in the country, the report, in particular, says that a volume of shadow economy is equal to more than 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Economist Jaffar Olimov, who is one of authors of the report, said that the main reasons for existence of dual accounting at enterprises are inefficiency of state institutions, burdensome official procedures, as well as poor professionalism of civil servants.
According to him, the survey is based on an opinion poll conducted among physical entities and enterprises on unofficial economic activity. Jaffar Olimov said they had surveyed top managers of 500 firms and representatives from 1,000 households.
“The shadow economy is based on three key factors: enterprises pay taxes 33 percent less than their due; goods produced by enterprises make on average 15 percent of their incomes; and more than 13 percent of wage is paid by goods or services,” Olimov said.
The authors consider that to stabilize the shadow economy situation it is necessary to improve, financial and tax systems.
“It is to be noted that decrease in tax rate is not the main task,” said Olimov, “Those surveyed said they cannot pay even less burdensome taxes under the present knotty system of taxation. It is necessary to set up institutions of financial mediators (consultants), take measures to decrease interest rates on loans and make shift to more modern methods of statistical count.”
The survey was conducted under financial support of the UNDP CO in Tajikistan.
