Dushanbe. June 23. “Asia-Plus” — Tajikistan’s public-private partnership sphere is still complicated, Makoto Ojiro, Country Director of Asian Development Bank”s Resident Mission in Tajikistan spoke at a seminar on public-private partnership organized by ADB in the frameworks of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) program on June 21 in Dushanbe.
He said that currently many countries acknowledge the need in adopting approaches of public-private partnership for development of infrastructure due to a large gap between investment needs and existing state financial resources.
Senior CAREC Coordinator Hong Wang, Chairman of the US National Council for Public-Private Partnerships Arthur Smith and Senior Capacity Building Specialist Elaine Glennie have attended the seminar.
According to ADB, the initiative to promote public-private partnership was adopted at the 7th CAREC conference held in November 2008. “Three similar seminars were conducted last year in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, another three are planned to be conducted this year in Dushanbe, Ashgabad and Tashkent. CAREC is an initiative supported by ADB and seeking to promote economic cooperation in Central Asia. The program was launched in 1997 and is currently focusing on regional initiative in such sectors as transport, trade, trade policy and energy which are crucial for improvement of economic indexes in the region and living standards of the population, especially the poor,” the source has said.
The source added that Tajikistan joined ADB in 1998. Since that time more than $560mln have been allocated to Tajikistan in the form of preferential loans, grants and technical assistance. “In 2010 ADB is planning to provide a $150mln grant to Tajikistan to support energy and development of private sector,” the source said.
