Economy
Tajikistani somoni per US dollar - 3.45
Agriculture: Largest sector of economy, dominated by cotton, grain, vegetables; food production insufficient for domestic consumption.
Industry and Mining: Advancement and diversification slow in 1990s after specialized roles in Soviet period emphasized aluminum processing and chemicals. Contributed about 30 percent of net material product (NMP-see Glossary) in 1991. Productivity of nearly all industries declined in mid-1990s. Several minerals, including gold, mined on a small scale.
Imports: In 1995, worth about US$1.2 billion. Principal items fuels, grains, iron and steel, consumer goods, and finished industrial products. Principal suppliers in CIS Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, India, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine; outside CIS Poland, Austria, France, Britain, and Turkey. Total non-CIS imports in 1995 US$265 million.

Historical Background
Before the Soviet era, which began in Central Asia in the early 1920s, the area designated today as the Republic of Tajikistan underwent a series of population changes that brought with them political and cultural influences from the Turkic and Mongol peoples of the Eurasian steppe, China, Iran, Russia, and other contiguous regions. The Tajik people came fully under Russian rule, after a series of military campaigns that began in the 1860s, at the end of the nineteenth century.