Internet and e-commerce in Tajikistan

Today we are to consider the condition of Internet and e-commerce infrastructure of one of the countries in Central Asia, Tajikistan. Tajikistan represents a mountainous landlocked country, bordering Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east. It also has common borders with Pakistan, but separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Being a part of the Soviet Union Tajikistan was the poorest republic. At present it still remains is the poorest country in Central Asia.

As for the Tajikistan’s telecommunications market, it is arguably the least developed of all the countries that emerged from the former Soviet Union. So, as the ICT market appeared to be near total collapse, the government has started the daunting task of bringing it up to modern standards. A gradual process of liberalisation is under way and a number of private operators have been allowed to enter the telecom market since 1996, notably in the mobile and Internet sectors.

During the mid-1990s the government announced its National Program of Communications Development, which was aimed particularly at the modernisation and development of communications throughout the country. Specifically it included plans to privatize communications, broadcasting and television to attract foreign investors, although the state was expected to remain a major shareholder. A new regulatory authority, the Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA), was created in 2005.

Privatization of state-owned fixed-line incumbent operator, Tajiktelecom was achieved by 2007. Tajik Telecom – represents the first Internet Service providers in Tajikistan, that is proud to be the very the first in the country.

Tajiktelecom still continues to dominate the market. The operator has been providing local, long-distance and international telephone services throughout the country.

The other popular ISP in Tajikistan is Tajnet.

Besides, about six mobile operators and around 12 ISPs had been licensed.

Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tajikistan is .tj administered by Information Technology Center. Registrations are processed via accredited registrars, like Tajiktelekom, Babilon-T, Compuworld, Eastera, GET.TJ, Global Study, Intercom, Promotion. The registration price depends on the registrar accomplishing it. Thus the prices vary between $20-30 per year, as says www.nic.tj.

Meanwhile the registration under 2nd level domains is also available as well as at third-level domain level beneath following second-level names:

• ac.tj
• biz.tj
• co.tj
• com.tj
• edu.tj
• go.tj
• gov.tj
• info.tj
• int.tj
• mil.tj
• name.tj
• net.tj
• nic.tj
• org.tj
• test.tj
• web.tj

Internet usage used to be growing slowly, with only 2,000 subscribers seen in 2000 that made up miserly 0.1% of the population. By 2005 the volume of users in Tajikistan managed to creep higher just by 0.2% with 19,500 Tadjiks connected to the web by 2005, as says www.intenetworldstats.com. However, over the last few years the situation has changed, owing to the intensification of Internet and related services deployment. Thus, by the end of 2009, the Internet connection became available for 600,000 of people in the country, that made up over 8.2%. Though, the Internet penetration in Tajikistan is extremely slow, the growth for the decade has reached almost 30,000 %.

Obviously, the slumping development of internet sector could not encourage e-commerce business rolling out. So, electronic commerce in Tajikistan has been immature.

So, just a few e-commerce businesses have successfully been operating on the Tajikistan online market. One of the good examples can be represented by creativewebstore.com. It’s an international business platform, supporting e-commerce deployment in different countries. The company’s goal is not only to create an online identity for the customer but give his business a competitive presence in trade on the Internet. The company works for clients from Tajikistan, Asia and many other countries. Its job starts at identifying Tajikistan market, Tajikistan competition and Tajikistan business goals.

  Well, Tajikistan ICT market still has to be developed as stagnation in Internet sector deployment naturally hampers e-commerce sector development. So, ICT and e-commerce infrastructure in Tajikistan needs active government support. Though, the government has already launched some programmes in a move to support country’s ICT industry rolling out, it’s still not enough.