DUSHANBE (TCA) — Proclaiming 2018 as the Year of Tourism and Folk Crafts in Tajikistan gave a serious impetus to understand the significance of these fields in the social and economic life of the people, as the number of tourists who visited Tajikistan in 2018 increased 2.5-fold compared to 2017. However, one year is not sufficient to achieve the objectives we set forth, President Emomali Rahmon said in his address to the country’s Parliament on December 26.
“This year we adopted our Tourism Development Strategy (to 2030) and promoted the tourism advantages of Tajikistan; however, additional measures need to be undertaken to improve the sector’s infrastructure across the country,” the President said as quoted by his press service.
With a view to speeding up the process of addressing the above-mentioned issues, and given the need for the rural infrastructure development, the President proposed to declare the years 2019-2021 as the “Period of Rural Development, Tourism and Folk Crafts”.
“Our main objective of making this proposal is the enforcement of the efforts of the Government of our country to ensure prosperity of Tajikistan and to address the social issues of the population by improving the infrastructure, first and foremost, in the fields of education and healthcare, creation of new jobs, supply of the rural population with quality drinking water, construction and renovation of local roads, enhancement of tourism infrastructure and development of folk crafts, bringing the level of services in line with the latest requirements and improvement of the population’s well-being in every village and populated area,” Rahmon said.
The Government of the country needs to undertake additional measures in order to achieve these objectives, and to promote unique tourism sites, to protect, develop and ensure effective use of natural resources, flora and fauna, and historical and cultural heritage, to create conducive environment for ecological, medical, sport, hunting and mountaineering tourism, he added.
