DUSHANBE, April 12, 2013, Asia-Plus  --  “In his annual address to parliament, President Emomali Rahmon must offer economic bloc ministries a number of measures facilitating socioeconomic development of the country,” Tajik economics expert Hojimuhammad Umarov told Asia-Plus in an interview.

“Firstly, the president must demand a long-term analysis of the main trends of economic development of Tajikistan from relevant ministries and agencies.  This analysis should be based on real data.”

Besides, the president should give an actual assessment of activities of Tajikistan’s banking system and offer measures to reform it, the expert said.

He also pointed to the necessity of giving an actual assessment of the country’s external trade turnover.

The expert says the real imports’ prevalence over exports is much higher than the official data shows.  “According to official data, imports are 3.5 times more than exports, but actually imports are at least 7 times more than exports,” Umarov said.

The authorities ought to stop hoping that migrants’ remittances will cover this difference.  “If there are no migrants’ remittances, Tajikistan will found itself in a default situation,” Umarov noted.

He also offers to make radical changes to the tax basis.  “The structure of the tax basis should be changed in favor of inland revenues and preference should be given to production enterprises but not to sphere of services,” the expert added.