DUSHANBE, NOV 12: The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Tajikistan (CCI) and Germany’s Association of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (BVMW) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation, ASIA-Plus reported citing CCI press service.

At an online meeting between the CCI leadership and BVMW representatives, which took place on November 7 with support from the Tajik Embassy in Germany, both parties discussed strengthening bilateral cooperation in economics, trade, and investment between Tajikistan and Germany.

The online meeting was reportedly attended by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Tajikistan to Germany, Imomudin Sattorov, the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Tajikistan, Jamshed Jumakhonzoda, the member of the Federal Executive Board of BVMW, Mr. Andreas Jahn, and other officials from both sides.

The meeting participants discussed strengthening bilateral trade and economic cooperation between Tajikistan and Germany.

Both sides reportedly emphasized the importance of active engagement and experience-sharing between entrepreneurs from Tajikistan and Germany to help bolster economic ties. Representatives highlighted the potential for mutually beneficial cooperation, especially in product export and import, as well as in investment and business development.

The meeting reportedly ended with the signing of the MoU between Tajikistan’s CCI and Germany’s BVMW. The parties agreed on a BVMW delegation visit to Tajikistan in May of the coming year. During this visit, the Association plans to open a representative office in the country, marking an “important step toward strengthening partnership relations.”

The BVMW is reportedly a politically independent association, which caters for all commercial branches and professions, and represents the interests of small and medium-sized businesses in politics, with administrative authorities, with trade unions and with major companies. Medium-sized businesses – around 3.3 million individual enterprises in all – are the backbone and impulse of the German economy.

According to the Agency for Statistics under the President of Tajikistan, the bilateral trade volume between Tajikistan and Germany over the first nine months of this year has valued at little more than US$75 million, down by 51.2% compared to the same period in 2023. Almost 95% of this trade involved the supply of German goods to Tajikistan.

Data from Tajikistan’s State Committee on Investment and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest) indicate that Germany’s total accumulated investments in the Tajik economy amount to approximately US$200 million.