DUSHANBE, November 10, 2008, Asia-Plus — The Government of Tajikistan has set task to process all the cotton into manufactured goods inside the country by 2015.
According to Deutsche Welle, Tajik Economic Development and Trade Minister Ghulomjon Bobozoda remarked that while delivering a statement at the Third Economic Conference on Central Asia that was held in Berlin on November 5-6.
We will recall that according to local experts, only some 15 percent of the cotton Tajikistan produces is processed into manufactured goods in Tajikistan, while the remainder is exported for manufacturing outside the country.
Speaking at the conference, the minister mainly focused on problems facing Tajikistan, in particular the problems connected with the export structure.
According to him, the main items of Tajik exports are currently raw materials resources or resources that are subject to a less-extent processing. “Our task is to develop the potential we have. Thus, a share of primary aluminum accounts for some 70 percent of Tajikistan’s exports,” the minister said, noting that there is potential for deep processing. “I think it is an area for joint efforts for production of goods from aluminum.”
Bobozoda noted that similar situation was in the cotton-processing sector. “We have set task to process all the cotton into manufactured goods at our own enterprises by 2015,” said the minister, “Tajikistan having giant reserves of water and power resources, is currently using only 5 percent of them, while many enterprises and the population are suffering from electricity shortages.”
According to him, joint efforts of countries having the domestic source of energy in hydropower and the downstream countries with the oil and gas would “give weighty product that would become powerful foundation for development of the whole region.”
“In my opinion, this problem is the Central Asian region’s number one development problem. Our countries currently pay attention to development of transportation corridors. Each of the countries of the region is striving for having alternative accesses to other neighboring regions. It is very important to develop the domestic transport infrastructure as well. In this connection, the most important issue is to remove all artificial barriers in the way of development of trade between our countries,” Bobozoda was cited as saying.
