Advisory Council to Protect Small Businesses
Thursday, 23 August, 2007
Advisory Council to Protect Small Businesses
Thursday, 23 August, 2007
The Tajik government is planning on establishing an advisory council to develop the private sector by November this year.
President Imomali Rahmon and Prime Minister Akil Akilov, along with members of government institutions, entrepreneurs and representatives from donor countries, will sit on the council, according to Avesta news agency reports.
The chairman of the State Committee for Investment and State Property, Sharif Rahimzoda, says the council will help to break down the administrative barriers that hold entrepreneurs back.
Small and medium-sized businesses produce over 40 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, “but this is the least defended sector and so the government is taking their interests under its own protection”, he says.
The new council will give entrepreneurs the opportunity to address the government directly with ideas on how to improve the investment climate and conditions for conducting business.
The rector of the Tajik Institute for Entrepreneurship and Services, Zokir Vazirov, explains that small and medium-sized businesses are blighted by high interest rates, over-taxation and pressure from the local authorities. They need such a council to champion their cause.
However, NBCentralAsia economic expert Professor Hojimuhammad Umarov believes this approach is naïve. Entrepreneurs can only do business if the authorities are on side and “any competitive company that emerges without their ‘protection’ will be swallowed by the sharks”.
The private sector can only begin to flourish once corruption has been stamped out, and this should be the council’s main priority, he says.
(NBCentralAsia draws comment and analyses from a wide range of observers throughout the region)
