Why Chinese investors are struggling to gain a foothold in Tajikistan
Central Asian country is one of first stops on ‘Belt and Road’, but legal difficulties, murky politics and security concerns pose obstacles to business
Chinese businessmen in Tajikistan are finding that life on the “Belt and Road” is not all beer and skittles – sometimes it’s more like pigeons and shotguns.
The head of the Federation of Overseas Chinese in Tajikistan, Hu Feng, explained the problem recently on a hot, dry day in the Tajik capital Dushanbe.
“You know how Tajik shoot pigeons?” he asked. “ They scatter some food on the ground and then wait around the corner with a shotgun. When pigeons come, they just blast away from a short distance. That’s the dire situation facing Chinese businessmen here.”
Hu has lived in Tajikistan for a decade, has a Tajik wife and has provided help to dozens of Chinese investors in Central Asia. His metaphorical Chinese pigeons are the investors, inspired by President Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, who flocked to the former Soviet republic, perched on China’s western border, in search of their fortunes.
Encouraged by the Belt and Road trade and infrastructure development plan, Chinese investment in Tajikistan rose 160 per cent year on year in 2015 to US$273 million, comprising 58 per cent of the country’s investment inflow that year.
