Input-Output Linkages and Key Sectors in the Economy of Tajikistan

Abstract

The present work aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the production structure of Tajikistan’s economy with the main focus on quantifying the complex web of inter-industry linkages and identifying important sectors in terms of their economy-wide impact capability. Input-Output Analysis techniques are adopted for analyzing the inter-dependencies of sectors from the supply-driven and demanddriven perspectives. In particular, this allows us to quantify the so-called backward and forward linkages that fully take into account direct and indirect production interrelations between sectors. Using the relevant input-output data for Tajikistan for the year of 2011, this work identifies six key sectors in terms of output generation and eight key sectors in terms of income generation. Key sectors refer to sectors with the strong backward and strong forward linkages in an economy. In addition, the strong backward linkage (or backward-oriented) sectors and strong forward linkage (or forward-oriented) sectors are identified. Targeting and stimulation of a set of key sectors, backward-oriented sectors and/or forward-oriented sectors results in a large economy-wide impact in the short to medium run.