Tajikistan’s Quest for Growth: Stimulating Private Investment
Resource information
The Tajik government in its Poverty
Reduction Strategy Paper for 2010-12 set an ambitious target
of doubling Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in a decade.
Tajikistan clearly has the potential to grow at more than
seven percent a year as it has done in the recent past, but
it is not going to be easy. The potential for
'catch-up' growth from the depths of the recession
of the 1990s is largely exhausted, the external environment
is now less favorable than it was in the 2000s, and some
drivers of past growth are unlikely to be sustained.
Nevertheless, efforts by the government to create better
conditions for higher private investment, exports, and
employment, as well as strong support from the Tajik
business community and development partners, could make this
target a reality. In the 2000s, the Tajik economy recovered
from the severe transition-related recession and civil
conflict of the 1990s. Macroeconomic performance improved:
inflation fell from 30-40 percent in the late 1990s to
six-seven percent in the mid-2000s, fiscal deficits were
lower, and the current account deficit and external debt
moved to more manageable levels. Real GDP growth averaged
nearly eight percent a year in 2000-08. The poverty
headcount fell sharply, from 72 percent in 2003 to 54
percent in 2007, with more than a million people moving out
of poverty; during the same period, the share of the
extremely poor population fell from 42 percent to 17
percent. Key social indicators (for example, primary and
secondary school enrollment rates, infant mortality,
maternal mortality, and child malnutrition) also improved.
