Review of the Air Transport Sector in Tajikistan
The aviation sector in Tajikistan is struggling today under a very restrictive air transport policy. Together with it, the whole economy of the country is being deprived from the derived benefits of better connectivity, such as trade, travel, and t...
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| Format: | Policy Note |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2006/06/7005962/tajikistan-review-air-transport-sector-tajikistan-policy-note http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19455 |
| Summary: | The aviation sector in Tajikistan is
struggling today under a very restrictive air transport
policy. Together with it, the whole economy of the country
is being deprived from the derived benefits of better
connectivity, such as trade, travel, and technology
transfer. While maintaining safety as the highest single
priority, the Government recognizes that the air transport
policy should allow for a liberalization of the markets,
allowing better connectivity with more efficient services at
lower prices. The only possible way to ensure the
implementation of a liberalized policy, an appropriate
institutional framework needs to be in place, allowing for
the complete separation between the policy maker, the
technical regulator and the operation. The airline, the
airport, and the air traffic control will be separated in
order to assure truly competition. Currently, all operations
activities are concentrated at Tajikistan State Airlines
(TSA). TSA is today an inefficient company that provides
poor service to its customers at prices that are high and
provide an involuntary price umbrella for the competition.
Its present existence was granted by a protective
environment, where a concentrated institutional framework
allowed regulation to be tinted by policy motivations.
Instead of promoting transparency in accounting and
efficiency in operations, there have been initiatives to
grant further loans that would end up fueling costs and
inefficiencies, while not achieving any of the promised
results. At bottom, all these inefficiencies are paid by the
migrant worker community that travels to Russia at unjust
air fares, representing a substantial part of their
earnings. A new policy that would liberalize the sector will
promote efficiency and lower the costs of travel, relieving
the tax on a huge mass of people, which is crucial to the
economy of Tajikistan. |
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