Eurasianet says that as Tajikistan’s government consolidates its control over the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO), it is now going to invest in large infrastructure projects in the region.   

President Emomali Rahmon has charged Industry and Innovative Technologies Minister Sherali Kabir, who is also the president’s special plenipotentiary to the GBAO, with overseeing the construction drive.

On June 30, work was reportedly started strengthening sections of the bank of the Panj River, which marks Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan. That same day, a government news outlet based in the GBAO reported on a project to provide drinking water to 620 families in GBAO’s capital, Khorog, Eurasianet says, noting that the city is also expected to see the construction of two new sports stadiums, parks and a 10-story building for the Khorog State University.

State broadcasters have reportedly devoted ample airtime to the planned construction of a 360-meter tunnel that is to be built along the highway linking the towns of Qalai-Khumb and Vanj, GBAO’s two westernmost districts.  Work overhauling that section of road is being financed with loans from China.

In a speech in his hometown of Danghara, President Emomali Rahmon on June 17 instructed Industry and Innovative Technologies Minister Sherali Kabir to study opportunities for the creation of technology parks and small and medium-sized industrial enterprises.  Eighty percent of the people employed at those enterprises should be from the GBAO, Rahmon said, according to Eurasianet.

Unemployment in Tajikistan is rife, but the problem is especially bad in the GBAO.  While, by some estimates, around 20-30 percent of the national population lives below the poverty rate, that figure is near to 40 percent in the Pamirs, according to Eurasianet.