ABSTRACT
The Republic of Tajikistan was little known to the rest of the world until the early 1990s.1 It was only after the collapse of the FSU in the late 1980s that it became known to the international community. While break up from the FSU enabled Tajikistan to be known as an independent state, it had to pay higher price for this. For example, its institutions and administrative structure collapsed, production fell significantly and international trade transactions were disrupted. To address these Tajikistan had no option but to introduce reforms in its economic, social and institutional fronts. Reform so far has gone through three distinct phases. The first stage of reform (1992-95) focused on the creation of institutions and the legal framework for the operation of the private sector, abolition of the monopoly of state trading enterprises, reform in the agriculture sector and privatization of small-scale enterprises. In the second stage (1996-99) attention was paid towards liberalization of prices, adoption of IMF programmes and privatization of large-scale enterprises. The third phase (2000-05) focuses on reform in the banking sector as well as infrastructure and the telecommunications sector.
