Country Risk Profile – Tajikistan
Overview
Tajikistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It covers an area of 142,326 km² and has a population of 9.9 million. It is bordered by Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. Dushanbe is the country’s capital and largest city. The main population centres are in the valleys in the south and north of the country. Mountains cover more than 90% of Tajikistan, with more than half of the country at an altitude of 3,000 metres.
Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic, declared itself an independent sovereign on 9 September 1991. A civil war broke out in May 1992, ending in June 1997. Since the end of the war, political stability and foreign aid have enabled the country’s economy to develop, but Tajikistan’s economy and infrastructure remain in a poor state. The country has been ruled authoritatively since 1992 by President Emomali Rahmon. Corruption is widespread, as are human rights violations, including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, worsening political repression, and a lack of religious freedom and other civil liberties. Tajikistan is categorised as a consolidated authoritarian regime by Freedom House, with a score of 1/100.
Tajikistan is one of the poorest nations in Central Asia. It is a developing country with a transitional economyheavily dependent on remittances, aluminium, and cotton production. The country hassignificant natural resources such as water, coal, mercury, gold, silver, salt, limestone, marble, and clay.
Political Risk
Domestic politics
President Emomali Rahmon’s authoritarian regime severely restricts political rights and civil liberties. The political opposition has been crushed by a sustained campaign of repression in recent years, and the government exerts tight control over religious expression and activity. In 2015, Rahmon took advantage of an attack planned by a sacked deputy defence minister to ban Tajikistan’s last major opposition political party. In December 2015, he further strengthened his position by having himself declared ‘Founder of Peace and National Unity, Leader of the Nation’, with unlimited mandates and lifelong immunity, thanks to constitutional amendments ratified in a referendum in 2016.
Nepotism
Wealth and authority are increasingly concentrated in the hands of the President and his family. Rahmon’s family holds significant control over the economy and its key public and private assets, including the state-owned Tajikistan Aluminium Company (TALCO) and the country’s main airline, Somon Air. While low-level corruption is sometimes punished, high-level corruption remains pervasive within the government. The 2023 Corruption Perception Index ranked Tajikistan 162nd out of 180 countries.
Freedom of speech and civil society
With the aim of suppressing independent institutions, the regime criminalised the dissemination of false information about the armed forces in 2022. This came in a year in which the Tajik military was used, within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), to curtail the January unrest in Kazakhstan, violently suppress the May protests in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), and engage in an armed conflict with Kyrgyzstan in September. These events, along with the government’s continued refusal to recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan, have been used by Rahmon to portray himself and his family as the guarantors of peace and stability in Tajikistan, and to justify tightening restrictions on civil rights as necessary to maintain national unity.
Rahmon’s regime alsoexerts pressure on the independent media and continues to monopolise the country’s information space. Journalists, dissidents, and activists are arrested or imprisoned on charges of extremism, links with banned opposition parties, or connections with the GBAO, while those based outside Tajikistan risk abduction and forcible extradition. Even relatives of opposition leaders and journalists in exile face harassment.
NGOs operations
NGOs must register with the Ministry of Justice and can be closed down for minor technical violations. NGOs must disclose funding from foreign sources. Foreign funds must be registered in a state registry before organisations can access them, and the government oversees operations supported by these funds. Under legislation implemented in 2019, NGOs must maintain their own websites and publish reports that comply with vaguely worded financial reports to prove they have no links to “terrorist financing” or “money laundering”.
In the first half of 2023, Tajik authorities announced the closure of 239 NG0s, following more than 500 closures in 2022, either by court decision or byself-liquidation, following alleged government pressure. Following the violent suppression of peaceful protests in GBAO and the continued crackdown on human rights defenders, lawyers, Pamiri activists, and journalists covering the issue, Tajik authorities moved to shut down or nationalise facilities belonging to the Aga Khan Foundation, including NGOs that received funding from the foundation. Human Rights Watch reports that in January 2023, a district court in Dushanbe issued a ruling liquidating the Independent Center for Human Rights Protection, an organisation working on issues deemed sensitive by the government, including housing rights and legal support to journalists and victims of torture, following a Ministry of Justice inspection of the organisation’s paperwork. The alleged non-compliance issues included late submission of financial reports and the absence of regional offices stipulated in its governing statute.
Economic Risk
World Bank data shows that Tajikistan experienced robust economic growth, with a significant expansion of 8.3% in 2023 and 8.2% in early 2024. This was driven by increased revenue from gold exports and public infrastructure spending. Worker remittances and public wage increases have also buoyed the country's economic activity, bolstering domestic demand and contributing to poverty reduction. Tighter monetary policy, coupled with moderating inflation as global food and fuel prices have dropped, has helped further strengthen the country's economic landscape. Tajikistan’s fiscal position has been bolstered by enhanced external grants, leading to a reduction in the public debt level.
Tajikistan’s economic outlook faces challenges. GDP growth is expected at 6.5% in 2024 and 4.5% in the medium term due to sluggish growth in key trading partners and domestic reform inertia. Remittances, a key growth driver, are expected to moderate, impacting private consumption and investment. Inflation is likely to rise due to electricity tariff hikes and higher public service wages. The fiscal deficit is projected to widen in 2024 due to reduced VAT revenue and increased spending on the Rogun Hydropower Plant, maintaining a high risk of debt distress until Eurobonds are repaid by 2027.
Business climate
The US State Department reports that Tajikistan is a difficult place to do business. It presents potential high-risk, high-reward opportunities for foreign investors with experience in the region, a long-term investment horizon, and the patience and resources to conduct significant research and due diligence.
Authoritarian policies, bureaucratic and financial hurdles, widespread corruption, a flawed banking sector, and countless business and tax inspections greatly hamper investors. Furthermore, as the World Bank points out, while private sector participation in Tajikistan’s economy is relatively high, its dynamism is quite low, notably due to low entry rate, low productivity, limited integration to trade, low incidence of innovation, and limited capabilities. These obstacles are reinforced by three sets of barriers: barriers to competition, barriers to foreign direct investment, and barriers to trade.
Despite these challenges and risks for potential investors, Tajikistan is seeking to strengthen its trade and investment links and has made modest progress on trade facilitation and tax reform to improve its investment climate in recent years. President Emomali Rahmonseeks to encourage private sector-led growth, and national development strategies give priority to attracting investment.
Security Risk
Organised crime
The country’s main concern is the spread of organised crime networks from Afghanistan, particularly in the heroin and opium markets, as well as the infiltration of radicalised Islamist groups from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan.
Corruption is widespread within the State apparatus, and State-embedded actors are directly or indirectly involved in criminal markets. Control of illicit activities extends to the highest levels of government. The political elite is known to facilitate criminal markets such as drug trafficking. In general, companies close to the political leadership enjoy privileged access to key sectors as well as government contracts with the police, judiciary, and security services.
Tajikistan has several mafia-style groups, each with regional chapters, operating within and outside its borders. These groups originate from former guerrilla opposition organisations and overlap with radical Islamist groups with ties to international terrorism. They exert substantial control along the borders, and in criminal enclaves. Most groups are primarily involved in drug trafficking and have been integrated into the state administration.
Inter-state conflict
Tensions with neighbouring Uzbekistan periodically result in border skirmishes, while the Tajik-Afghan border zone is largely porous and populated by militants.
Tensions have been high along the border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan for many years. Around a third of their border is undelimited, and disputes over land and water rights in these border areas have fuelled local disputes that eventually escalated into clashes between the two countries’ armies in late April 2021, killing over 50 people, and in mid-September 2022, killing around 100. Since the September war, the two sides have accused each other of bringing additional troops and weapons to the border area. The risk of another war between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is high.
Border security
Due to a lack of resources and equipment, the Tajik army's border force tends to rely on the Russian army, which maintains a presence in the country.
The Fergana Valley, where the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan meet, is fertile ground for conflict, as the borders drawn during the Soviet era ignored the ethnic structure and culture of the valley’s inhabitants.
The border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan presents a particular risk of conflict.
Geopolitical Risk
Russia
As a former Soviet republic, Tajikistan enjoys a special relationship with Russia. Moscow is Dushanbe’s main trading partner, with Russia investing in energy, manufacturing, metals, mining and construction, air and rail transportation, high technology, and agriculture. Tajikistan’s heavy reliance on remittances from migrant workers in Russia, and its security dependence on the presence of a Russian military base of 7,000 troops in the country, gives Moscow significant power over the Tajik government.
Following the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow in March 2024, carried out by Tajik nationals, there has been a spike in xenophobic attacks and commentary against Tajiks, as well as backlash against migrant workers in Russia. As a result, in April 2024, Tajikistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs recommended that its citizens “temporarily refrain from traveling to the territory of Russia by all means of transport.”
Nevertheless, relations between the two countries are unlikely to change, as they continue to cooperate on security issues, and Russia needs migrant labour and Tajikistan needs to export such labour.
China
Tajikistan’s geography makes it important to China in terms of regional security, transit routes, and hosting its military base. Tajikistan officially joined the Belt and Road Initiative in 2018. By 2022, China was Tajikistan’s largest lender, holding around 70% ($2 billion) of Tajikistan’s external debt ($3.3 billion). In 2020, China opened a military base in Tajikistan’s autonomous GBAO region, transforming the country’s regional and domestic security architecture, which had previously relied exclusively on Russian security assistance and military deployment in southern Tajikistan. In July 2024, media reported that China was building a military base in Tajikistan, close to the border with Afghanistan. Although the Tajik and Chinese governments have denied these allegations, Beijing’s military presence in the country is growing and the construction of this base could mean greater involvement in Tajikistan's internal affairs.
China’s economic and political role in Tajikistan is set to expand further, with the two countries elevating their bilateral relations to a ‘comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership’ during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Tajikistan in July 2024. It was also on this occasion that Xi presented President Emomali Rahmon with the Friendship Medal, China's highest state honour for foreigners.
Conclusion and forecast
Political change is highly unlikely in the coming months. President Emomali Rahmon has ruled the country in an authoritarian manner since 1992 and further tightened his grip on power in 2015, banning the last opposition party and declaring himself ‘Founder of Peace and National Unity, Leader of the Nation’. Corruption and nepotism remain endemic. The harsh repression of independent media and dissent will remain, leaving no space for opposition or the development of civil society.
On the economic front, GDP growth is expected at 6.5% in 2024 and 4.5% in the medium term due to sluggish growth in key trading partners and domestic reform inertia.
Organised crime will remain the main concern in the months ahead, facilitated by the political elite. Relations with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan need to be closely monitored, as tensions with these two countries can lead to deadly border skirmishes and even war. As long as Tajikistan does not increase its defence budget, the country will continue to depend on the Russian army to protect its borders.
Russia and China will remain heavily involved in Tajikistan, particularly on the economic front. Moscow will remain the main security partner. However, with Russia's attention and resources focused on Ukraine, Tajikistan may be tempted to develop new partnerships.