Tajikistan's Difficult Development Path by Martha Brill Olcott

Author:Martha Brill Olcott [Olcott, Martha Brill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, General, Human Rights
ISBN: 9780870033032
Google: -AuVCwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 17472647
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 2012-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

Tajikistan’s Gold Industry

Tajikistan had a well-developed gold-mining sector during the Soviet period, although most of the gold deposits that were easiest to develop were already substantially depleted by the time of independence. There are still deposits in northern and central Tajikistan, as well as in the southern Pamirs, with dense deposits in the Djilau-Taror and Turkestan-Chorin regions of Central Tajikistan. This was the area of the Anzob metallurgical factory (kombinat), which was a major producer of antimony during the Soviet period and now has scant production and operates as a joint venture with a U.S. firm.116 However, there are reports that this U.S. firm (Comsap) is in fact controlled by President Rahmon’s brother-in-law, Hasan Sadulloev, who is the dominant figure behind Orienbank, and that Sadulloev also holds Tajikistan’s antimony concession.117

China’s Zijin Mining has been working with metallurgists from Tajikistan to revitalize that country’s gold industry.118 Tajikistan developed a gold extraction industry while under Soviet rule. Zijin Mining began working Tajikistan’s gold fields in 2007, when it took over the 75 percent stake of Commonwealth and British Mineral Ltd. in the Zerafshan JV, formed in 2004.119 The JV, operated through Avocet mining, a Commonwealth and British subsidiary, had mining and exploration rights over a 300,000-hectare area near Penjikent, and sold the subsidiary to Zijin Mining for $55 million.120

Although Tajikistan is the smallest gold producer of the four Central Asian states with gold reserves (the others being Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan), it nonetheless produces 1.3 to 1.5 tons of gold annually, and its gold industry was boosted by the announcement in January 2011 of two new gold fields, the first in the central part of the country, with an estimated 177 tons of gold reserves, and the other in the northern part, with 79 tons.121 Chinese business interests (the China Global New Technology Export and Import Company) also have a dominant role in Tajikistan, having taken over the Altyn-Topkan mining complex in Sughd, which is expected to produce 1 million tons of lead-zinc per year when its restoration and expansion plans are complete.122

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