DUSHANBE, June 11, 2012, Asia-Plus — The World Bank has provided 10 million US dollars to finance the Private Sector for Tajikistan.
The Secretariat of the Ministry of Finance reports an agreement on financing the project was signed here on June 8.
We will recall that the World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved a US$10 million grant for the Tajikistan Private Sector Competitiveness Project on May 10, 2012 and Tajikistan’s entrepreneurs and residents of mining development communities will benefit from this grant.
The project reportedly focuses on critical areas in need of reforms which can generate important improvements in the country’s business environment and capitalize on Tajikistan’s comparative advantage in the mining sector.
The objective of the Private Sector Competitiveness Project for Tajikistan is to remove key constraints to business development and investment by: a) simplifying business registration and construction permitting processes; b) improving regulations and infrastructure underlying access to financial services; and c) encouraging development of the mining industry, where Tajikistan has a competitive advantage. There are three components to the project, the first component being strengthening the business environment. This comprises of three sub-components: completion of establishment of an online one-stop-shop for business registration; improvement of the regulatory framework for provision of construction permits, and establishment of a single window for processing construction permits and inspections; and improvement of the financial infrastructure. The second component is the encouraging the development of the mining industry. This component will aim at supporting the development of a conducive business environment in the mining sector, which has a high competitiveness potential in Tajikistan, leveraging the new Competitiveness Partnerships Initiative (CPI) developed under the Finance and Private Sector (FPD) network of the Bank. Finally, the third component is the project management.
