On Thursday February 18, Dushanbe hosted a roundtable to discuss issues related to the processing of domestic cotton fiber into the final competitive export and import-substituting products, development of the spinning, weaving, dyeing and garment industries as a priority direction of the industrialization of the economy of Tajikistan.
The event was organized by the Union of Private Sector Development of Tajikistan (UPSDT) in cooperation with the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies (MoINT) and the State Committee on Investment and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest) of Tajikistan. The International Trade Center (ITC)’s Global Textile and Clothing Program funded by the Government of Switzerland has provided a technical support to organize the event.
According to ITC Tajikistan, the meeting brought together representatives of the textile and clothing companies – members of the Union, relevant government agencies, and international development partners to discuss development issues of the textile and clothing sector in the country.
Mr. Fayzali Rajabov, UPSDT Chairman of Board, said: “We’ve traditionally brought together private and public sectors representatives around one table to organize an open dialogue between them to discuss improvement of entrepreneurship environment of the textile and clothing sector in the country. The event participants were introduced with on-going state programs and the current conditions of enterprises, as well as discussed the use of existing production facilities, the quality and pricing of manufactured products and their impact on competitiveness of enterprises both domestically and on the international market, the demand of the labor market and the quality of training qualified personnel for the industry.”
Mr. Saidmumin Kamolov, ITC Tajikistan National Program Manager, in his speech, noted: “I believe that creation of a favorable business environment, training qualified engineers and workers of key specialties, ensuring the competitiveness of manufactured products in the domestic and foreign markets, and undertaking other important initiatives will support the development of the country's textile and clothing industry and can be a crucial step in achieving the goal of ensuring the final processing of domestic cotton fiber into competitive export products.”
Mr. Abdullo Muhammadiyev, head of the textile and clothing department at the UPSDT, analyzed the country’s textile and clothing production in 2020: “Despite the pandemic, the sector has achieved good results in 2020. Last year, the local factories produced 19 287 tons of cotton yarn, 13 705 000 square meters of cotton fabrics,, as well as 7 807 000 pairs of socks. Also, the country produced garment for 346 million somonis, and knitted products totalling2 859 000 somonis. Some 926 594 pieces of school uniform have also been produced in the country last year. The total export of textile and clothing products reached 58, 8 million of USD.”
Representatives of the MoINT, GosKomInvest and State Property Management, Public Foundation “Entrepreneurship and Development”, the State Unitary Enterprise/Industry and Export Bank “Sanoat Sodirot Bank”, Agency of Standardization, Metrology, Certification, and Trade Inspection – Tajikstandard, the Customs Service, and the Tax Committee presented their current activities and services relevant to the sector. The presenters informed the audience on different issues related to the textile and clothing sector, such as structural and management optimization of an enterprise, improvement of productivity, production of competitive products of good quality, protection of rights and legal interests of entrepreneurs, taxation, improvement of quality, safety and quantity of school uniform production, prevention of illegal import of ready garment, creation of healthy competitiveness in local market, easing access of private sector to long-term favorable bank loans, preparation and implementation of quality trade projects, handy use of taxation benefits, improvement of knowledge and skills of the sector entrepreneurs and etc.
Additionally, representatives of the Entrepreneurship and Development Foundation and Sanoat Sodirot Bonk sat together with the textile and clothing companies’ management and experts for a B2B meeting.
