China is Tajikistan's largest source of investment and third largest trading partner.
According to data from the State Committee on Investment and State-owned Property Management of Tajikistan (GosKomInvest), China’s accumulated investment in Tajikistan’s economy has reached 3.015 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2020.
In 2020, China reportedly invested 152 million U.S. dollars in Tajikistan’s economy and China's direct investment in Tajikistan last year totaled 120 million U.S. dollars.
Last year, share of China’s investment in the country’s economy amounted to 35.5 percent of the total volume of attracted foreign investments.
In 2020, inflow of foreign investment in Tajikistan’s economy amounted to US$428.4 million, with US$162,5 million of them being direct investment and the remaining US$265.9 million being other investments (preferential loans and other financial investments), the GosKomInvest press center says.
Chinese investments began to flow into the Tajik economy only in the second decade of the 2000s.
The first relatively large investments from China were attracted by Tajikistan in 2007, after sing by the two countries of the Treaty of Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation.
A significant inflow of Chinese investments began after the settlement of territorial issues between the two countries in 2011.
In 2007-2020, over US$10.3 billion was attracted to the economy of Tajikistan from 65 countries, within some 30 percent of them being attracted from China.
China is followed by Russia – US$1.6 billion, the United States – US$703 million, the United kingdom – US$694 million, and Kazakhstan – US$577 million.
China has invested practically in all sectors of Tajikistan’s economy, mostly in mining industry, energy, chemical industry, textile industry, communications, construction, infrastructure, financial services, and agriculture.
Tajikistan is of crucial strategic importance to the Chinese state, particularly to China’s planned developments for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), because of two key factors. First, Tajikistan is set to become a central passageway for China’s import of natural resources, most notably gas imports from Turkmenistan and second, Tajikistan, as part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), is a vital geostrategic partner for China in combating the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism.
