Tajikistan, Central Asia and One Belt One Road strategy

Thomas Chan, China Business Centre, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,

October 2015

Tajikistan – the hub and the gate way Tajikistan has been for

millennia on the

overland route between

China, South Asia and

West Asia and beyond.

The close of the Cold

War has offered the

opportunity to revive

its historical functions

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The transport hub – the first leg: Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-

Tajikistan Railway

It is financed by Turkmenistan and Asian

Development Bank,; now under construction and

should be completed 2 years from 2015. It opens

up Tajikistan to the west to join the Turkmenistan

railways and to the south eventually through

Afghanistan to go to South Asia

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Sources: http://www.russiasupplychain.com/wp-

content/uploads/2013/06/Proposed-route-of-Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-

Tajikistan-railway.jpg; &

http://dlca.logcluster.org/display/public/DLCA/2.3.1+Tajikistan+Road+Cor

ridors+to+Afghanistan;jsessionid=A6CBEC061283F7849F5E5DF61FFEF2DF

The present obstacle to reviving

the transport hub functions of

Tajikistan is the non-cooperation

of Uzbekistan and the TAT

railway serves to bypass the need

to transit through Uzbekistan

also to save time & cost

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Source: Henry Kerali, Senior

Transport Specialist, The World

Bank, Presentation: Transport and

Trade Linkages: Central Asia &

Eastern Europe

By means of TAT, Tajikistan will become once again the heart of

the Heart of Asia and will easily leverage on the One Belt One

Road strategy of China

11/19/2015 5 Source: Henry Kerali, Senior Transport Specialist, The World Bank, Presentation:

Transport and Trade Linkages: Central Asia & Eastern Europe.

Peace in Afghanistan to

support the southward

linkage of Tajikistan

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Sources: Mohammad Yamma Shams, Director General,

Afghanistan Railway Authority, Presentation at 10th Annual MENA

Metro & Rail Summit, Dubai, 20-22 October 2015;

http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/afghanistan/tag/map/;

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/yamashams-

afghanistanrailwayauthority-141028005141-conversion-

gate01/95/yama-shams-afghanistan-railway-authority-7-

638.jpg?cb=1414457809

Tajikistan will also rely on

the railway networks in Iran

and Turkey to go to Europe

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Plans for International Rail Connections of Turkey.

Map: TCDD, December 2014

Source: http://orientalreview.org/wp-

content/uploads/2015/01/train-iran-map.jpg

Connectivity and accessibility by means of electrified fast speed railways will

compress time and space along the overland silk road and connect to ports

along the coast of Indian Ocean and of the Mediterranean Sea. Tajikistan will

become truly the transport and transit hub for the silk road economies, not

only for China and Europe on the two ends, but for the many emergent market

economies in between . This will be the first step towards servitization of the

economy for socio-economic transformation of the country and its people.

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The role of Hong Kong as the most internationalized and

cosmopolitan city on the Silk Roads

1. Institutional arbitrage – to overcome risks and costs posed by the

different institutional setup of economies at dissimilar stages of

development and with great diversity of socio-cultural backgrounds

2. Generation and mobilization of much needed talents and capital to build

up an offshore knowledge base and international financial centre for all

economies engaged in the One Belt One Road strategy

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World Bank Doing Business Ranking

Tajikistan DB 2016 Rank* DB 2015 Rank* Hong Kong

2016 rank

Starting a Business 57 81 4

Dealing with Construction Permits 152 150 7

Getting Electricity 177 176 9

Registering Property 102 101 59

Getting Credit 109 118 24

Protecting Minority Investors 29 27 1

Paying Taxes 172 178 4

Trading Across Borders 132 159 47

Enforcing Contracts 54 54 22

Resolving Insolvency 147 147 26

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*Out of 189 economies. Source: World Bank

Institutional distance in terms of doing business has been

very large between Hong Kong and Tajikistan and other

Central Asian countries. This offers great advantage for

institutional arbitrage, especially with the one-country

two-system regime of Hong Kong