Daily Times

TAJIKISTAN has been making firm steps towards the flourished future. During the last 25 years, thanks to the dedicated efforts of President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, we have made significant achievements in political, economic, social and cultural development of our country. Tajikistan has undertaken all of these efforts to strengthen the foundation of state independence. In fact, freedom and independence are our greatest achievements and the holy national ideology.

On December 22, 2016, Leader of the Nation Emomali Rahmon had an annual address to the parliament of the Republic of Tajikstan in which he highlighted the progress during past years. He maintained that post-Tajik independence was an era of challenges for the people. In early 90s of the last century, Tajikistan was in the whirlpool of severe internal conflicts as a result of intervention of some foreign countries made under the slogan of society democratization and this process led to imposed civil war and a fratricidal tragedy.

The noble people of Tajikistan very well remember the terrible aftermath and painful blow of the war started by a group of people and ill-wishers of the Tajik nation with a view to imposing a strange culture and religion on Tajik people and establishing Islamic State, which caused the death of tens of thousands of citizens besides inflicting a huge economic loss.

The President pointed out that his government spent almost 10 years to restore the constitutional regime and governance pillars, particularly law enforcement agencies and military authorities; ensure return of more than one million refugees to the country; undertake post-war revival activities and ensure peace and stability and national unity.

The year of 2016 was indeed a historical and successful year for Tajik people during which we made significant achievements. We maintained sustainable economic growth and ensured macroeconomic and social indicators based on priority objectives despite the negative impact of external factors. GDP reached TJS 54bn and the real growth stood at 6.8%.

Regardless of our achievements in 2016, we also had some shortcomings and challenges emerged in the real economic situation. For example, due to the fact that some ministries and agencies did not undertake necessary measures and as a result of negative impact of external factors on the economy, fee-based public services, foreign trade turnover, import and lending declined and the public budget’s revenue not implemented fully. However, we ensured full and timely funding of the social sector from the public budget.

As no country can ensure its development without the development of energy, we identified the energy security and energy efficiency as one of the strategic objectives of the State. We have currently been implementing 11 public investment projects amounting TJS 10bn in total to achieve this objective as well as develop and effectively use the huge energy resources of the country. Alongside with construction of new and rehabilitation of existing hydropower plants, we also constructed the first and the second phases of Dushanbe-2 thermal power plant with the capacity of 400MW to supply various facilities and residents of Dushanbe with heating and address the power deficit in winter.

During the next five years, the government plans to focus on the quality of human capacity building and pay attention to development of science, education, healthcare, culture, environment and employment.

During this period, all adults will have at least secondary education and not less than half of able-bodied population will have vocational or higher education.

Tajikistan is a law-based, democratic and secular state, where human and civil rights and freedoms, rule of law and legal order is guaranteed. The Parliament adopted a number of laws aimed at protection of human and civil rights and freedoms, ensuring law and order and development of economy and business.

The Leader of the Nation noted that Tajikistan has undertaken certain activities to strengthen judicial independence based on the amendments made in the Constitution of Tajikistan. In this process, we abolished the Council of Justice and handed over the issues pertaining to the selection and rotation of personnel as well as advanced professional training of judges to the Supreme Court and Supreme Economic Court.

The President said that terrorism and extremism have become a global threat. Another challenge is corrupt practices, which has been impeding sustainable socio-economic development of the country. There are still cases of corruption-related crimes committed by some staff of governmental agencies and other institutions.

The formulation and implementation of open-doors foreign policy is one of the great achievements of our State in the period of our independence. Thanks to our balanced foreign policy, Tajikistan ensured its deserved reputation in the international stage in this period and established multifaceted relations and cooperation with the countries of the world, international and regional organizations and international financial institutions.

The President stated that the genuine goals of the foreign policy of Tajikistan are aimed at protection of national interests in the international stage, ensuring favorable conditions overseas for the sustainable development of the country and promoting the strengthening of the pillars of State independence and sovereignty of Tajikistan.

The writer is the Ambassador of Tajikistan to Pakistan