One of the ways to improve the economic situation of countries, including Republic of Tajikistan is to increase foreign trade turnover. For the latter, in addition to having an extensive assortment of goods, efforts are needed to promote them on the international market, including information support, participation in international exhibitions and various fairs.
Free access to the list of export products and manufacturing enterprises is provided by the Tajikistan Trade Portal, which was officially launched on April 26, 2019. It was developed by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Republic of Tajikistan with financial support from the Government of Switzerland and other development partners, in particular, the International Trade Center (ITC), the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the UN Development Program and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The Republic of Tajikistan was the first in the Central Asia to create the Trade Portal, which provides the most complete information on export, import and transit procedures in three languages.
Important for those wishing to establish trade relations with Tajikistan, is the "Manufacturers" section, which presents a list of enterprises exporting industrial products, with their addresses and contact details.
Currently, in this section there are 52 Tajik enterprises exporting their products, the list of which is about 500 goods. This section is constantly updated and expanded by specialists of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Republic of Tajikistan.
Definitely the most popular section of the Trading Portal is “Procedures”, the automated system which contains the entire chain of actions and steps necessary to implement your planned business plans.
By entering the name of products, the user can get a brief description of export, import or transit procedures, including a list of institutions involved, each with a full name, address and directions: where, for what documents and on what issue to apply.
A step-by-step action plan and directions to it are also presented there. The same section shows the estimated cost of all services and paperwork, as well as the time frame.
Another function of the section will allow you to independently determine whether a particular type of goods being transported need an authorization document, including a certificate of conformity, a certificate of origin of goods, etc.
In general, the portal provides information on export, import and transit procedures for 53 product groups, including 20 export procedures, 30 import procedures and 3 transit procedures, which are equivalent to more than 1,500 goods and products.
The portal also provides information on procedures On and Outside the customs territory, re-export, re-import, temporary import, temporary export and specific customs procedures.
Another section of the Trade Portal contains two statistical databases of international organizations. One of them is the data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity, which has developed a tool that allows you to get clear and accessible information about countries and their products, as well as the trade balance of Tajikistan. The second database belongs to the International Trade Center which is a map of the export potential of Tajikistan and other countries.
This extensive information is of interest to both domestic and foreign participants in trade relations, as well as to academic economists.
An advantage of the Trade Portal is regulatory legal acts regulating foreign trade activities available on the website, as well as various instructions and rules necessary when filling out customs declarations and transit rules.
A section of the Trade Portal entitled “Coordinating Committee on Facilitation of Trade Procedures” describes the activities of the Committee, which is one of the most useful platforms for solving problems of representatives of the private sector and deriving benefits from the introduction of new mechanisms to facilitate trade procedures.
Also in the portal you can find video instructions for using the portal, which lists all the details for the effective use of the Tajikistan Trade Portal.
It should be noted that the experts of the UN Economic and Social Commission and the UN Conference on Trade and Development consider the opportunity provided by the Trade Portal to post private sector export offers as very useful.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development recently published the results of an assessment of trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region in 2019. In this assessment, the Tajikistan Trade Portal was highly rated and named as the model platform for reducing time and costs for export, import and transit, as well as simplifying and transparency of non-trade measures.
Thus, the Tajikistan Trade Portal, providing for participants and businessmen wishing to establish commercial relations the most complete information about export, import and transit procedures, a list of export products, a description of the necessary procedures, as well as a wealth of legislative and statistical information, is a window to the world for existing and potential participants in international trade.
There is no doubt that in the coming years the Tajikistan Trade Portal will serve as a starting point for increasing the scale of Tajikistan's foreign trade.