# _Constraints to Tajikistan’s Market Accessibility_

The fact that transport cost between Dushanbe and Khujand are higher than the cost of exporting a container of the same weight from Moldova to the United States (Table 4) illustrates how challenging domestic connectivity is in Tajikistan. We can use Geographical Information System (GIS) data to assess the market accessibility of Tajik settlements (Map 1).<sup>7</sup> Map 1 confirms the poor domestic market accessibility of Tajikistan, with a clear geographical segmentation of the country between the North and the South. Accessibility seems to be limited by small settlements and high travel time, particularly in GBAO. Dushanbe, Kurgan Tyube, Kulyab and their surroundings have a relatively high access to domestic market, but they are quite isolated from Khujand and its surroundings in the Northern part of the country better connected via rail and road to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and all the way to Kazakhstan and Russia.

**Table 4. Domestic Freight Rates, Tajikistan, 2009**

||**Distance (km)**|**USD per 10 tons of freight**|
|---|---|---|
|Within Dushanbe|12|14–112|
|Dushanbe–Tursunzade|56|242|
|Dushanbe–Kurgan-tyube|99|546|
|Dushanbe–Kulyab|204|909|
|Dushanbe–Nijny Panj|206|1,091|
|Dushanbe–Jirgatal|287|1,697|
|Moldova to United States<sup>a</sup>|7,668|1,895|
|Dushanbe–Khujand|341|1,940|
|Dushanbe–Kanibadan|421|2,424|
|Dushanbe–Isfara|448|2,546|
|Dushanbe–Khorog|524|2,606|

_Source:_ International Finance Corporation and World Bank 2009; Ministry of Transport, Tajikistan. aData from _Doing Business_ 2009.

The Tajik government is considering upgrading or rehabilitating a couple of roads. The market accessibility index can provide a quick assessment of which of these projects may provide better market accessibility to domestic producers. Indeed, a road crossing settlements with better domestic market accessibility is more likely to induce more demand for transport services by local producers trying to connect to markets, thus unleashing the potential for cargo consolidation along the way. Given established increasing return to scale in transport services, such freight consolidation opportunity is vital for regional and global competitiveness of Tajikistan. Map 2 overlays some of these road projects with the market accessibility level of Tajik settlements.

As highlighted by the low market accessibility of the settlements crossed in Map 2, the following projects appear to be less urgent: the reconstruction of the Highway Aini-Panjakent-Uzbek border; the reconstruction of the Highway Obburdon-Auchi-Gonchi; and the reconstruction of the Highway KulyabKalai Khumb. However, the reconstruction of the highways Kofarnihon-Romit and Rudaki-Sultanabad-

> 7 The index is calculated using the gravity-type relation , where Ai is the accessibility measure of settlement i, Wj is the activity to be reached in settlement j, cij is the generalized cost of reaching market j from i, g(.) is called the activity function, and f(.) the impedance function. We use the population of settlements for Wj and the travel time for cij to compute the market accessibility index for all settlements with an identified population.

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