Introduction

The development of the entrepreneurship as an essential component of the economy of Tajikistan is taking place for the past 19 years, in spite of its certain downturn during the civil war in the country in 1991-1997. Within the given period, the legal framework for the regulation of business activities was developed and amendments to the particular conditions of the governmental policy related to the entrepreneurship support were made.

The stage of the entrepreneurship establishment required the improvement of its sectoral structure and enhancement of the economic efficiency. It is obvious that the prospects of its development are directly related to the alleviation of particular barriers which business people currently encounter. At the same time the inception of economical growth should initiate the positive influence on the entrepreneurship promotion.

The essay will exclusively focus on the analysis of entrepreneurship establishment and development in Tajikistan with the reference to SME sector including the importance of entrepreneurship for the socio-economic development. In addition, the essay will describe main barriers to entrepreneurship development and possible ways to alleviate the difficulties related to its promotion.

The rationale for the decision to write about this specific issue is based on following particular reasons: there are very few research works describing problems of entrepreneurship development in Tajikistan. Although, some scholars described these issues in the former Soviet Union countries, in most of their works Tajikistan is only slightly mentioned among the other countries.

The objective of this given paper is to define the entrepreneurship situation in Tajikistan, the importance of its development as well as to identify the difficulties for entrepreneurship development and to provide recommendation for the solution of the existing problems.

In order to reach the stated objective, the following research questions were raised. First of all it is important to understand, what are the main barriers to entrepreneurship development in Tajikistan? Secondly, what are the possible ways to promote entrepreneurship development?

The theoretical and empirical grounds for the given paper are the analytical works of Tajik and foreign scholars, statistical data, as well as surveys and reports of various international institutions. Due to the analysis of both foreign and Tajik experts’ assessments the reader will be enabled to find the dual opinion on the described issue.

Chapter One

The role and importance of entrepreneurship in Tajikistan

1.1 Tajikistan at a glance: background information

In order to explain the entrepreneurship situation in Tajikistan, it is worth to describe the background information about the country.

Being a landlocked country, Tajikistan is located far from the main Eurasian highways. Infrastructure is poorly developed due to the fact that 93% of the all territory is mountains. In fact there are a number of scientific works describing the linkages between the infrastructure and the country development, including development of the entrepreneurship. However, in the framework of present essay the impact of poor infrastructure to the entrepreneurship development will not be discussed.

During 1929 – 1991 Tajikistan was a member of the Soviet Union. After the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991, the country gained independence and started the transition to the market economy. After gaining its independence, the country was immediately faced with the economic problems caused by the collapse of the centrally-planned Soviet economy: such as, disruption of guaranteed markets, withdrawal of subsidies and instability of exchange (Middleton, 2007). Due to these facts, economical as well as political transformations of Tajikistan were difficult, primarily due to the holdover of various centrally planned “command and control” approaches to the national development (Suhir, 2003).