In late July, World Bank experts published a report on the current situation in the Central Asian economies. In particular, analysts made a disappointing conclusion regarding Tajikistan. Noteworthy is the fact that the World Bank closely associates the problems in Tajik economy with Russia’s special operation.
According to the international financial organisation, 53% of enterprises in the Republic have allegedly suffered. The report can be considered an attack on Russia – a political scientist Igor Dubovsky expressed his point of view in an interview with CentralAsia.news. He explained that the World Bank report is actually nothing more but an economic overview, and the authors have problems with identifying the reasons.
Economy at-a-glance
The expert stressed that Tajikistan’s GDP per capita is about $900. It is one of the poorest countries in Central Asia. In the past few years, Tajik economy has shown economic growth of 5-7 %. Igor Dubovsky noted that the external trade balance was increasing. However, the situation with export remained unfavourable.
“Imports exceed exports by almost 3 times. This significantly increases the budget deficit and makes Tajikistan’s debt burden grow,” the expert said.
According to Dubovsky, the main industries of Tajik economy are the oil and gas, mining, manufacturing and agricultural sectors. However, they are not developed enough to let Tajikistan refuse from frequent loans in the foreign market due to an imperfect financial system and the lack of substantial investments, among other things. This leads to an increase in the public debt, which puts a burden on Tajik economy with such low GDP.
The political scientist reminded about the factor that, apparently, the World Bank analysts decided to ignore. It was a blow to the national economy and continues to negatively affect.
“We must remember that Tajik economy has not yet recovered from the civil war. This factor also significantly undermines Tajikistan’s investment attractiveness, despite the fact that Tajikistan has quite large proven reserves of various mineral resources and the potential to develop processing industries,” the interlocutor emphasised.
Substitution of concepts
The expert does not deny the problems in Tajik economy and considers the “picture” drawn in the report to be objective. The only thing is that the political scientist categorically disagrees with the existence of a link between Russia’s actions and the difficulties of Tajik economy.
Dubovsky reminded about the 2020 crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. It was the pandemic that had drastic negative effects on many sectors of global economy. It has affected Tajikistan as well.
As for the situation around the special operation, analysts have committed a fraud with facts, trying to make Moscow guilty of Dushanbe’s problems. As they say, the main thing is the way in which information is presented.
“Tajikistan, being historically connected with Russia by economic, energetic and financial ties, felt the effect of Western sanctions against Russia and those who support Russia as an ally or actor in economic cooperation. So, the World Bank is being cunning when it says the problems in Tajik economy stem from Russia’s military operation,” the political scientist believes.
Igor Dubovsky has no doubt that the report should be regarded as a “response” of the West to the actions of the state they do not like, which is Russia.
