DUSHANBE (TCA) — 2018 was a historical year for the people of Tajikistan, President Emomali Rahmon said in his address to the country’s Parliament on December 26.
“The launch of the first unit of Roghun Hydropower Plant, a life-changing facility of the century and a significant factor for the bright future of Tajikistan, … is a milestone event in the history of independent Tajikistan and a firm step of our country toward the achievement of our first national strategic objective — energy security,” the President said as quoted by his press service.
Rahmon said that Tajikistan has addressed the political, economic and trade issues with neighboring Uzbekistan that existed during more than two decades, and that was another historical event of the departing year.
In 2018 Tajikistan’s GDP grew 7.3% and inflation was maintained at 5.4%, the President said.
“We ensured progress of the various economic spheres, particularly manufacturing sectors, created more than 150,000 new jobs and for the last three years the number of our citizens engaged in overseas labor migration reduced by 25%,” Rahmon said.
“We have identified the energy security and energy efficiency, ensuring Tajikistan’s connectivity and its transformation into a transit country, food security and access of the country’s population to quality food, as well as productive employment as our strategic objectives, and we have been implementing our agenda on transition from agrarian to industrial economy.”
The President emphasized that the use of the abundant hydropower capacity of Tajikistan would make it possible to supply the countries of the region with environmentally clean electricity as one of the main drivers of the development of “green economy” and significantly contribute to the reduction of CO2 (carbon) emissions.
Currently, international organizations rank Tajikistan 6th in the world in terms of generation of environmentally clean electricity.
“Our country has the necessary potential to be ranked as the 2nd or 3rd country in the world for generation of electricity from renewable sources after launching new assets, including Roghun HPP. This would serve as an input of Tajikistan in addressing one of the global issues – reduction of carbon emissions and decrease of negative implications of global warming,” said the Tajik leader.
