In Dushanbe, in the halls of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan, the Council of national coordinators of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states finished its session. The Secretary General of the SCO Dmitry Mezentsev took part in it. Thus, the year of presidency of Tajikistan in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization began.

I will notice that according to rotation, every year after the summit the SCO presidency passes to the next member state. For Tajikistan it is the second period of presidency, from the moment of the organization’s creation, and the state authorities, traditionally choosing the motto of their presidency in the organization, proclaimed the following: «Cooperation, social development, co-prosperity».

Undoubtedly, economic cooperation is one of the components of any international project, and in the year of the Tajik presidency in the SCO special attention is paid to this very issue. The crucial role in this area belongs to the SCO Business Council coordinating all joint economic projects. What priorities of the organization are on agenda this year, I asked the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Tajikistan (CCI), the head of the national part of the SCO Business council from Tajikistan, Sharif Said.

-What are the main priorities of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Tajikistan in accordance to its presidency in the SCO?

-Our work in the SCO is concentrated on several projects, among which we can mark the following ones: the search of partners for realization of investment projects of the SCO member-states and elaboration of new methods of finance support of the project activity.

One more important priority is the development of the insurance business and common insurance companies. It is no wonder that many Russian and western companies still consider business in Tajikistan extremely risky, referring such projects to the category of «venture». As a result, Tajikistan has to work on unprofitable terms, that is why business activity decreases. Business insurance will allow to overcome this negative tendency.

I would like to emphasize that according to our plan such insurance is not limited only by providing safety of export or foreign investments. It will also spread on the insurance of our migrants the number of which varies from 800 thousand to 1.5 mln only in the Russian Federation. The leading sponsors of the project are Russia and China which carry out active commercial activity in Central Asia.

Besides the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the framework of its presidency in the SCO intends to arrange the search of partners for investment projects and also to develop mechanisms of supporting project activity of business. Now we are planning to create a package of the SCO investment projects on CD-s for foreign investors.

- Do the mentioned projects only refer to the state level of cooperation?

-Not only. At the same time we are considering the role of public bodies of the executive power (above all, regional bodies) in forming the system of organized labor migration on the basis of state-private partnership: improving information exchange on demands for manpower and the opportunities of their satisfaction with enterprises and local employers; supporting labour migrants in placement and settling the emergent issues; rendering legal and social protection at the new quality level.

Our main goal is to relieve the SCO central state bodies from these problems, to transfer the solution of these problems to local bodies, closer to employers and concrete projects. We have already held such a meeting, and as a result we have reached an agreement on holding such consultations and finding mutual solutions

- Does the activity of the CCI concern only the economic sphere?

- No, we also have other projects, for instance in the field of public health service. For example, we raise the question of creating the medical centers of the SCO in each country. Their aim is to unite efforts and to place the overall knowledge of physicians from different states at the peoples’ service of any member-state.

- How will your traditional exhibition activity look like?

- A tradition of organizing exhibitions in the presidency year has established among the SCO member states: they are devoted to the most developed branch of the country’s economy. It is supposed to organize light and food industry, first of all, to the refinery branch expos in the year of Tajikistan’s presidency.

It is also worth mentioning that within the CCI there are also bilateral Business councils with all the SCO member states which deal with questions of cooperation with this or that country. One of the examples is the Russian company «Vozrozhdenie» specializing in road and bridge construction. A meeting with the representatives of this company headed by the chairman of directors' board Igor Bukato has recently been held in Dushanbe.

He described the diverse operations performed by this multi-profile holding such as building and maintenance of roads, bridges, tunnels and production of construction materials. The company has been actively operating in Russia since 2009 and successfully cooperates with Turkmenistan.

There is deputy office of the company in Afghanistan as well. It is supposed to repair the highway through the Salang pass, the major connection artery. Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan are tightly bound by common interests and problems. «Vozrozhdenie» is very interested in partnership with Tajikistan, where many road objects have to be built or repaired.