Economy

Tajikistan's economy is dependent on agriculture and livestock raising. Some two thirds of the population is extremely poor, and some 900,000 members of the workforce are employed in Russia or other foreign countries. Mining and raw-materials processing, which were formerly important, have diminished since the economic collapse in the 1990s, after Soviet rule ended and civil war began. The lowlands specialize in the cultivation of cotton, wheat, barley, fruit (including wine grapes), and mulberry trees (for silk). Karakul sheep, dairy cattle, and yaks are raised. The republic's mountains yield coal, antimony, silver, gold, salt, uranium, mercury, tungsten, lead, and zinc, but most mining has ceased. Cotton ginning, silk spinning, food processing, winemaking, carpet weaving, metals processing, and the manufacture of textiles, chemicals, fertilizers, and cement were the leading industries, but these too have been curtailed. There is some petroleum, and Tajikistan is well provided with hydroelectric resources. The country's economic problems and political turmoil have led Tajikistan to become an important heroin smuggling transit point. Trade is primarily with other former Soviet republics; the first road to China was opened only in 2004.