15 January 2010
The meeting of the President of Republic of Tajikistan, Emomaly Rakhmon with the entrepreneurs of the country was conducted where the various aspects of the activities, carried out by business structures of Tajikistan, were discussed, including their contribution to the construction of Rogun hydroelectric power station (HPS).

The President of the country, addressing the audience, emphasized from the beginning, that the meeting itself was a visible evidence of the fact, that the partnership between state and private sector has entered a qualitatively new development level, and in this connection he mentioned the activities of the Consultative Council which was established with a purpose of improving investment climate, as a guarantee of promoting ideas for the development of business and investment activities, as well as for taking respective measures to address the most urgent problems of the business in the country.

The President of Republic of Tajikistan informed the participants about the results of the activities implemented by the Government on facilitating reforms in the private sector for the period from the last meeting which took place in 2007. Particularly, it was mentioned that during that time the Government had worked out an action plan and the work had been done and still ongoing on improving access to small loans by entrepreneurs and businessmen, upgrading and simplifying certification procedures and regulating taxation.

With a view to implement anti-crisis measures a two year moratorium was announced for any type of inspections of small and medium enterprises, which runs out by the end of 2010. The important direction of the implemented reforms was the integration of a new mechanism for the state registration of business enterprises based on «One - Stop Shop» principle.

To prevent the negative impact of the global financial crisis to the economy of the country, the Government of Tajikistan had adopted the Plan of additional anti-crisis measures in 2009 with a short term perspective, and the Program on «Improving Business Environment - 200 days of reforms», as well as formed an Inter-ministerial Commission for supporting national producers and protecting the domestic market.

Focusing on the key directions of the Government's activities for the near future, the President of the country instructed the Government to strengthen the work that had been initiated earlier on regulating and reducing the number of permitting documents, required for carrying out entrepreneurial activities and introduce a draft law «On Permitting system» for consideration by the Parliament by the end of the first six months.

The National Bank was instructed to adopt measures on improving normative-regulating acts on security deposit and developing a national loans register, which will help the banks to receive additional information about loan recipients.

The President of the country also gave a number of instructions to the Ministry of Finance, the Tax Committee and SCI of RT on improving tax administration. Thus, the responsible ministries and agencies will have to review the possibilities on reducing the number of payments and tax reporting without detriment to the state budget, and submit proposals for the consideration by the Government on introducing the practice of electronic handling of tax reports, introducing a computer system for tax accounting and control, and creating data bases at tax agencies.

The responsible ministries and agencies are to present proposals on abolishment of ineffective tax allowances which discourage a healthy competition among entrepreneurs, develop and approve a standard of providing services to taxpayers.

The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and the Tax Committee were given the specific tasks to simplify export and import procedures, particularly to submit the proposals on implementation of the adopted Concept of establishing «One- Stop Shop» system on export/import and transit procedures in the Republic for consideration by the Government by the end of the first six months.

In this aspect, in order to reduce the barriers in foreign trading, the Customs Committee has to enhance its activities on implementing the Concept of developing customs agencies, having ensured the implementation of the Program aiming at modernization of customs and its infrastructure within the shortest time possible. The Agency on Standardization was instructed to enhance the activities on implementing the Law «On Technical Normalization», which is called to ensure the quality and safety of goods and products on the consumer market.

The President of Republic of Tajikistan spoke out for simplifying the procedures of land allocation used for construction of production facilities, the performance of which would be aiming at producing competitive products intended for export in particular.

In this regard, the President of the country emphasized the need for speeding-up the processes for establishment of free economic zones, such as «Sugd», «Pyanj», «Dangara» and «Ishkashim».

The President of the country mentioned that the main purpose of establishing free economic zones and other similar centers is primarily to stimulate the foreign and national entrepreneurs, to develop exports and increase currency returns, to import advanced technologies and prepare specialists with high level of technical skills.

The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and the State Committee on Investments and State Property Management were given the task to thoroughly study the possibilities of arranging investment-industrial zones in the republic as well as innovative-technical and tourist centers.

Speaking about the insurance, which is the important safety tool from risks and failures for commercial and investments activities, the President of the country instructed the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the State Committee on Investments and State Property Management of RT to conduct a thorough analysis of the current legislation and present specific proposals for its improvement to the Government in the part of expending insurance activities.

The issues of social protection of entrepreneurs were not disregarded during the meeting either. Particularly, the President of Republic of Tajikistan reminded the attendees that the country has not yet determined the mechanism for maintaining the record of work of individual entrepreneurs and their social protection in case of unemployment. In this connection the President set specific tasks of developing the mechanism to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population, the Ministry of Finance and the Tax Committee.

The President of the country in his address paid a special attention to the subject of developing transport and energy infrastructure, which plays a key role in development of entrepreneurship. It was highlighted that it has been still very difficult to speak about the full development of business area and economic development, due to energy deficit, which led to industrial production decline, still exists.

Using the presence of business structures of the country at the meeting, the President of the country addressed to all participants with a call to actively participate in the construction of Rogun HPS.

The full text of the speech by the President of Republic of Tajikistan can be found on: http://www.president.tj/rus/novostee_150110.html

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