Economic growth in Tajikistan, the poorest of 15 former Soviet republics, accelerated to 7.4 percent last year from 6.5 percent in 2010, the state statistics agency said on Monday. Annual inflation slowed to 9.3 percent in 2011 from 9.8 percent in the previous year, data released by the agency showed.
Industrial production growth of 5.9 percent was slower than the 9.7 percent expansion recorded a year earlier, it said. The economy of Tajikistan, a mountainous Central Asian country of 7.5 million sharing long borders with Afghanistan and China, relies on remittances from around 1 million migrant workers and revenues from aluminium and cotton exports.
The agency said Tajikistan's gross domestic product at the end of 2011 stood at around $6.5 billion. The country's external trade deficit widened to $1.9 billion from $1.5 billion a year earlier, it said. Aluminium accounted for 55 percent of Tajikistan's total export revenues last year, the agency said, while cotton contributed 16 percent. Imports of natural gas from Uzbekistan rose 3 percent in volume and 16 percent in cost last year.