1.
Tajikistan
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Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a mountainous, landlocked country in Central Asia with an estimated 8 million people in 2013, and an area of 143,100 km2. It is bordered by Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the south, the Republic of Uzbekistan to the west, the Kyrgyz Republic to the north, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan lies to the south, separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Traditional homelands of Tajik people included present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, a civil war was fought almost immediately after independence, lasting from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability, Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces. Most of Tajikistans 8 million people belong to the Tajik ethnic group, many Tajiks also speak Russian as their second language. Mountains cover more than 90% of the country and it has a transition economy that is highly dependent on remittances, aluminium and cotton production. Tajikistan means the Land of the Tajiks, the suffix -stan is Persian for place of or country and Tajik is, most likely, the name of a pre-Islamic tribe. Tajikistan appeared as Tadjikistan or Tadzhikistan in English prior to 1991 and this is due to a transliteration from the Russian, Таджикистан. In Russian, there is no single letter j to represent the phoneme /ʤ/ and дж, Tadzhikistan is the most common alternate spelling and is widely used in English literature derived from Russian sources. Tadjikistan is the spelling in French and can occasionally be found in English language texts, the way of writing Tajikistan in the Perso-Arabic script is. The earliest recorded history of the dates back to about 500 BCE when much, if not all. After the regions conquest by Alexander the Great it became part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, northern Tajikistan was part of Sogdia, a collection of city-states which was overrun by Scythians and Yuezhi nomadic tribes around 150 BCE. The Silk Road passed through the region and following the expedition of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Wudi commercial relations between Han China and Sogdiana flourished. Sogdians played a role in facilitating trade and also worked in other capacities, as farmers, carpetweavers, glassmakers. Later the Hephthalite Empire, a collection of tribes, moved into the region. Central Asia continued in its role as a crossroads, linking China, the steppes to the north. It was temporarily under the control of the Tibetan empire and Chinese from 650–680, the Samanid Empire,819 to 999, restored Persian control of the region and enlarged the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara which became the cultural centres of Iran and the region was known as Khorasan. The Kara-Khanid Khanate conquered Transoxania and ruled between 999–1211, during Genghis Khans invasion of Khwarezmia in the early 13th century the Mongol Empire took control over nearly all of Central Asia
2.
Dushanbe
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Dushanbe — is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. Dushanbe means Monday in the Tajik language and it was so named because it grew from a village that originally had a popular market on Mondays. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, as of 2014, Dushanbe had a population of 778,500. Situated at the confluence of two rivers, Varzob and Kofarnihon, Dushanbe is the capital of Tajikistan. Although archaeological remnants dating to the 5th century BC have been discovered in the area, the first written mention of the village of Dushanbe occurred in 1676. It was at the crossroads, where a large bazaar occurred on Mondays, hence the name Dushanbe-Bazar from Dushanbe, in the village, there were more than 500 households and a population of about 8,000 people. By 1826, the town was called Dushanbe Qurghan Russified as Dyushambe, the first map showing Dyushambe was drafted in 1875. At that time, the town was a fortress on a bank on the left bank of the Varzob River with 10,000 residents. In 1920, the last Emir of Bukhara briefly took refuge in Dyushambe after being overthrown by the Bolshevik revolution and he fled to Afghanistan after the Red Army conquered the area the next year. A Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic separate from the Uzbek SSR was created in 1929, in the years that followed, the city developed at a rapid pace. The Soviets transformed the area into a centre for cotton and silk production, the population also increased with thousands of Tajiks migrating to Tajikistan following the transfer of Bukhara and Samarkand to the Uzbek SSR as part of national delimitation in Central Asia. On 10 November 1961, Stalinabad was renamed Dushanbe, the name it retains to this day, severe rioting occurred in February 1990, after it was rumored that the Soviet government planned to relocate tens of thousands of Armenian refugees to Tajikistan. In January 2017, Rustam Emomali, current President Emomali Rahmons son, was appointed Mayor of Dushanbe, a key position, Dushanbe features a Mediterranean climate, with strong continental climate influences. The summers are hot and dry and the winters are chilly, the climate is damper than other Central Asian capitals, with an average annual rainfall over 500 millimetres as moist air is funnelled by the surrounding valley during the winter and spring. Winters are not as cold as further north owing to the shielding of the city by mountains from extremely cold air from Siberia, January 2008 was particularly cold, and the temperature dropped to −22 °C. Tajik Air has its office on the grounds of Dushanbe Airport in Dushanbe. Somon Air has its office in Dushanbe. Tajikistans principal railways are in the region and connect Dushanbe with the industrial areas of the Gissar and Vakhsh valleys and with Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan
3.
Somoni
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The somoni is the currency of Tajikistan. It is subdivided into 100 diram, the currency is named after the father of the Tajik nation, Ismail Samani. The somoni was introduced on 30 October 2000, it replaced the Tajikistani ruble, the currency is divided into 100 diram for one somoni. This was also the first time circulating coins were introduced in Tajikistan. Circulation coins, first issued in 2001 were struck in denominations of 5,10,20,25,50 diram composed of brass clad steel and 1,3, bimetallic 3 and 5 somoni coins were first released in 2003. The reverse of all coins are changed annually and commemorate various events. A second issue dated 2011 was issued in June 2012, Tajikistan coins are struck by Goznak at the Saint Petersburg Mint in Russia. Economy of Tajikistan Notes Sources Coins of Tajikistan at CISCoins. net
4.
Fiscal year
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A fiscal year is the period used by governments for accounting and budget purposes, which vary between countries. It is also used for reporting by business and other organizations. Taxation laws generally require accounting records to be maintained and taxes calculated on an annual basis, the calculation of tax on an annual basis is especially relevant for direct taxation, such as income tax. Many annual government fees—such as Council rates, licence fees, etc. —are also levied on a year basis. The fiscal year end is the date marks the end of the fiscal year. Some companies—such as Cisco Systems—end their fiscal year on the day of the week each year. Under such a system, some years will have 52 weeks. Many universities have a year which ends during the summer. In the northern hemisphere this is July to the next June, in the southern hemisphere this is calendar year, January to December. Some media/communication-based organizations use a broadcast calendar as the basis for their fiscal year, the American football league NFL uses the term league year, which in effect forms the leagues fiscal year. In Afghanistan, the year was recently changed from 1 Hamal –29 Hoot to 1 Jadi –30 Qaus. The fiscal year runs with the Afghan calendar, thus resulting in difference of the Gregorian dates once in a four-year span, in Australia, a fiscal year is commonly called a financial year and starts on 1 July and ends on the next 30 June. Financial years are designated by the year of the second half of the period. For example, financial year 2017 is the 12-month period ending on 30 June 2017 and it is used for official purposes, by individual taxpayers and by the overwhelming majority of business enterprises. Business enterprises may opt to use a year that ends at the end of a week. All entities within the one group must use the financial year. The Commonwealth adopted the near-ubiquitous financial year standard since its inception in 1901, the reason given for the change was for convenience, as Parliament typically sits during May and June, while it was difficult for it to meet in November and December to pass a budget. In Austria the fiscal year is the year,1 January to 31 December
5.
International Monetary Fund
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The International Monetary Fund is an international organization headquartered in Washington, D. C. It now plays a role in the management of balance of payments difficulties. Countries contribute funds to a pool through a system from which countries experiencing balance of payments problems can borrow money. As of 2016, the fund had SDR477 billion, the rationale for this is that private international capital markets function imperfectly and many countries have limited access to financial markets. The IMF provides alternate sources of financing and this assistance was meant to prevent the spread of international economic crises. The IMF was also intended to help mend the pieces of the economy after the Great Depression. As well, to provide investments for economic growth and projects such as infrastructure. The IMFs role was altered by the floating exchange rates post-1971. It shifted to examining the economic policies of countries with IMF loan agreements to determine if a shortage of capital was due to economic fluctuations or economic policy, the IMF also researched what types of government policy would ensure economic recovery. Rather than maintaining a position of oversight of only exchange rates and their role became a lot more active because the IMF now manages economic policy rather than just exchange rates. In addition, the IMF negotiates conditions on lending and loans under their policy of conditionality, nonconcessional loans, which include interest rates, are provided mainly through Stand-By Arrangements, the Flexible Credit Line, the Precautionary and Liquidity Line, and the Extended Fund Facility. The IMF provides emergency assistance via the Rapid Financing Instrument to members facing urgent balance-of-payments needs, the IMF is mandated to oversee the international monetary and financial system and monitor the economic and financial policies of its member countries. This activity is known as surveillance and facilitates international cooperation, the responsibilities changed from those of guardian to those of overseer of members’ policies. In 1995 the International Monetary Fund began work on data dissemination standards with the view of guiding IMF member countries to disseminate their economic and financial data to the public. The executive board approved the SDDS and GDDS in 1996 and 1997 respectively, the system is aimed primarily at statisticians and aims to improve many aspects of statistical systems in a country. It is also part of the World Bank Millennium Development Goals, some countries initially used the GDDS, but later upgraded to SDDS. The IMF does require collateral from countries for loans but also requires the government seeking assistance to correct its macroeconomic imbalances in the form of policy reform, if the conditions are not met, the funds are withheld. The concept of conditionality was introduced in a 1952 Executive Board decision, conditionality is associated with economic theory as well as an enforcement mechanism for repayment
6.
World Bank
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The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to countries of the world for capital programs. It comprises two institutions, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the International Development Association, the World Bank is a component of the World Bank Group, which is part of the United Nations system. The World Banks stated official goal is the reduction of poverty, the president of the World Bank is, traditionally, an American. The World Bank and the IMF are both based in Washington, D. C. and work closely with each other, although many countries were represented at the Bretton Woods Conference, the United States and United Kingdom were the most powerful in attendance and dominated the negotiations. Before 1974 the reconstruction and development loans provided by the World Bank were relatively small, the Banks staff were aware of the need to instill confidence in the bank. Fiscal conservatism ruled, and loan applications had to meet strict criteria, the first country to receive a World Bank loan was France. The Banks president at the time, John McCloy, chose France over two other applicants, Poland and Chile, the loan was for US$250 million, half the amount requested, and it came with strict conditions. France had to agree to produce a budget and give priority of debt repayment to the World Bank over other governments. World Bank staff closely monitored the use of the funds to ensure that the French government met the conditions. In addition, before the loan was approved, the United States State Department told the French government that its members associated with the Communist Party would first have to be removed, the French government complied with this diktat and removed the Communist coalition government - the so-called tripartisme. Within hours, the loan to France was approved, when the Marshall Plan went into effect in 1947, many European countries began receiving aid from other sources. Faced with this competition, the World Bank shifted its focus to non-European countries, in 1960, the International Development Association was formed, providing soft loans to developing countries. From 1974 to 1980 the bank concentrated on meeting the needs of people in the developing world. The size and number of loans to borrowers was greatly increased as loan targets expanded from infrastructure into social services and these changes can be attributed to Robert McNamara, who was appointed to the presidency in 1968 by Lyndon B. Johnson. McNamara implored bank treasurer Eugene Rotberg to seek out new sources of capital outside of the banks that had been the primary sources of funding. Rotberg used the bond market to increase the capital available to the bank. One consequence of the period of poverty alleviation lending was the rise of third world debt. From 1976 to 1980 developing world debt rose at an annual rate of 20%
7.
Commonwealth of Independent States
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The Commonwealth of Independent States, also called the Russian Commonwealth, is a regional organization formed during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Nine out of the 15 former Soviet Republics are member states, Georgia withdrew its membership in 2008, while the Baltic states chose not to participate. The CIS has few supranational powers but aims to be more than a purely symbolic organization, nominally possessing coordinating powers in the realms of trade, finance, lawmaking and it has also promoted cooperation on cross-border crime prevention. Furthermore, eight of the nine CIS member states participate in the CIS Free Trade Area, three organizations are under the overview of the CIS, namely the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Union State. While the first and the second are military and economic alliances, in March 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, proposed a federation by holding a referendum to preserve the Union as the Union of Sovereign States. The new treaty signing never happened as the Communist Party hardliners staged a coup in August that year. Following the events of August, the republics had declared their independence fearing another coup, at the same time they announced that the new alliance would be open to all republics of the former Soviet Union, and to other nations sharing the same goals. The CIS charter stated that all the members were sovereign and independent nations, Georgia joined two years later, in December 1993. At this point,12 of the 15 former Soviet Republics participated in the CIS, the three Baltic states did not, reflecting their governments view that the post-1940 Soviet occupation of their territory was illegitimate. In May 2009, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine joined the Eastern Partnership, there are nine full member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Creation Agreement remained the main constituent document of the CIS until January 1993, the charter formalised the concept of membership, a member country is defined as a country that ratifies the CIS Charter. Turkmenistan has not ratified the charter and changed its CIS standing to associate member as of 26 August 2005 in order to be consistent with its UN-recognised international neutrality status, thus it does not regard itself as a member of the CIS. In 1993 Ukraine became an Associate Member of CIS, following the 2014 parliamentary election, a new bill to denounce the CIS agreement was introduced. In September 2015 the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Ukraine will continue taking part in CIS on a selective basis, since that month Ukraine has had no representatives in the CIS Executive Committee building. Since its inception, one of the goals of the CIS has been to provide a forum for discussing issues related to the social. To achieve this goal member states have agreed to promote and protect human rights, even before the 1995 human rights treaty, the Charter of the CIS that was adopted in 1991 created, in article 33, a Human Rights Commission sitting in Minsk, Belarus. This was confirmed by decision of the Council of Heads of States of the CIS in 1993, in 1995, the CIS adopted a human rights treaty that includes civil and political as well as social and economic human rights. This treaty entered force in 1998
8.
Eurasian Economic Community
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The Eurasian Economic Community was a regional organisation between 2000 and 2014 which aimed for the economic integration of its member states. Uzbekistan joined the community on the 7 October 2005, however later withdrew on the 16 October 2008, during the 14 years, the EAEC implemented a number of economic polices to unify the community. The Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia was formed on the 1 January 2010, the four freedoms were fully implemented by 25 January 2012, with the formation of the Eurasian Economic Space. On 10 October 2014, an agreement on the termination of the Eurasian Economic Community was signed in Minsk after a session of the Interstate Council of the EAEC, the Eurasian Economic Community was terminated from 1 January 2015 in connection with the launch of the Eurasian Economic Union. While the Eurasian Economic Union effectively replaces the community, membership negotiations with Tajikistan are still ongoing, all other EAEC members have joined the new union. Uzbekistan was previously a member of the EAEC, however it suspended its membership in 2008, in accordance with the Charter of the EurAsEC, observer status could be granted to the states or intergovernmental organizations at their request. Observer status did not allow states to take part in decision-making at the meetings of the Eurasian Economic Community, the Interstate Council meets at the level of Heads of State at least once a year, and the heads of government - at least twice a year. The council takes decisions by consensus, the decisions taken are binding on all Member States of the Community. The Integration Committee is a permanent organ of the Eurasec and it consists of deputy heads of governments of the countries of the Community. The Integration Committee meetings must be held at least four times a year, in integration, the Committees decisions are taken by a two-thirds majority. The seats of the Secretariat are in the cities of Almaty, the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Eurasian Economic Community serves as body of parliamentary cooperation in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Community. It addresses the issues of harmonization of legislation and bring it into line with the agreements concluded in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Community. Assembly is composed of members of parliament, delegated by the parliaments of member states, the ultimate goal would be a regional organisation that would be open for other countries to join as well, and could eventually lead even to a single currency. On 22 May 2003 The Verkhovna Rada voted 266 votes in favor and 51 against the joint economic space, a single market for the Eurasian Economic Community came into effect in January 2012, followed by the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union on 1 January 2015. Forming a customs union between EurAsEC member states became a top priority from Spring 2008, when the EU announced its Eastern Partnership. Since that time, there has been discord between the EU and Russia with both accusing the other of attempting to carve out spheres of influence over the countries at issue. A supranational body of the customs union—the Eurasian Economic Commission—was established on December 12,2008, boiled down to its essence, Russia has offered EurAsEC members access to its markets and lower energy prices. The EUs offer to membership countries amounts to promises of de facto EU integration, kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev had proposed the creation of a common noncash currency called yevraz for the community
9.
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
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These countries, except for Uzbekistan had been members of the Shanghai Five, founded in 1996, after the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the members renamed the organisation. On July 10,2015, the SCO decided to admit India, India and Pakistan signed the memorandum of obligations on 24 June 2016 at Tashkent, thereby starting the formal process of joining the SCO as full members. The acceptance process will take months, by which they are expected to become full members by the next meeting at Astana in 2017. The official working languages of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are Chinese, according to political scientist Thomas Ambrosio, one aim was to ensure that liberal democracy could not gain ground in these countries. On 24 April 1997, the countries signed the Treaty on Reduction of Military Forces in Border Regions in a meeting in Moscow. Subsequent annual summits of the Shanghai Five group occurred in Almaty in 1998, in Bishkek in 1999, in 2001, the annual summit returned to Shanghai. There the five member nations first admitted Uzbekistan in the Shanghai Five mechanism, on 16 July 2001, Russia and the PRC, the organisations two leading nations, signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation. In June 2002, the heads of the SCO member states met in Saint Petersburg, there they signed the SCO Charter which expounded on the organisations purposes, principles, structures and form of operation, and established it in international law. Its six full members account for 60% of the mass of Eurasia. With observer states included, its affiliates account for half of the worlds population. The Council of Heads of State is the top decision-making body in the SCO and this council meets at the SCO summits, which are held each year in one of the member states capital cities. This council also holds annual summits, at which members discuss issues of multilateral cooperation. The council also approves the organisations budget, the Council of National Coordinators coordinates the multilateral cooperation of member states within the framework of the SCOs charter. The Secretariat of the SCO is the executive body of the organisation. The Head of RATS is elected to a three-year term, each member state also sends a permanent representative to RATS. The SCO is primarily centered on its member nations Central Asian security-related concerns, however evidence is growing that its activities in the area of social development of its member states is increasing fast. At 16–17 June 2004 SCO summit, held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on 21 April 2006, the SCO announced plans to fight cross-border drug crimes under the counter-terrorism rubric. Grigory Logninov claimed in April 2006 that the SCO has no plans to become a military bloc, nonetheless he argued that the increased threats of terrorism, extremism and separatism make necessary a full-scale involvement of armed forces
10.
World Trade Organization
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The World Trade Organization is an intergovernmental organization which regulates international trade. The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round. The WTO is attempting to complete negotiations on the Doha Development Round, as of June 2012, the future of the Doha Round remained uncertain, the work programme lists 21 subjects in which the original deadline of 1 January 2005 was missed, and the round is still incomplete. This impasse has made it impossible to launch new WTO negotiations beyond the Doha Development Round, as a result, there have been an increasing number of bilateral free trade agreements between governments. As of July 2012, there were various groups in the WTO system for the current agricultural trade negotiation which is in the condition of stalemate. The WTOs current Director-General is Roberto Azevêdo, who leads a staff of over 600 people in Geneva, a trade facilitation agreement, part of the Bali Package of decisions, was agreed by all members on 7 December 2013, the first comprehensive agreement in the organizations history. Seven rounds of negotiations occurred under GATT, the first real GATT trade rounds concentrated on further reducing tariffs. Then, the Kennedy Round in the mid-sixties brought about a GATT anti-dumping Agreement, because these plurilateral agreements were not accepted by the full GATT membership, they were often informally called codes. Several of these codes were amended in the Uruguay Round, only four remained plurilateral, but in 1997 WTO members agreed to terminate the bovine meat and dairy agreements, leaving only two. Well before GATTs 40th anniversary, its members concluded that the GATT system was straining to adapt to a new globalizing world economy. In response to the problems identified in the 1982 Ministerial Declaration, the GATT still exists as the WTOs umbrella treaty for trade in goods, updated as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations. GATT1994 is not however the only legally binding agreement included via the Final Act at Marrakesh, the highest decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which usually meets every two years. It brings together all members of the WTO, all of which are countries or customs unions, the Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements. When agricultural export subsidies were agreed to be phased out and adoption of the European Unions Everything, the WTO launched the current round of negotiations, the Doha Development Round, at the fourth ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar in November 2001. This was to be an effort to make globalization more inclusive and help the worlds poor, particularly by slashing barriers. The initial agenda comprised both further trade liberalization and new rule-making, underpinned by commitments to strengthen substantial assistance to developing countries. Among the various functions of the WTO, these are regarded by analysts as the most important and it provides a forum for negotiations and for settling disputes. Another priority of the WTO is the assistance of developing, least-developed and low-income countries in transition to adjust to WTO rules and disciplines through technical cooperation and training
11.
Gross domestic product
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Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
12.
Inflation
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In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time resulting in a loss of value of currency. When the price rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods. Consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange. A chief measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index. The opposite of inflation is deflation, Inflation affects economies in various positive and negative ways. Economists generally believe that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by a growth of the money supply. However, money supply growth does not necessarily cause inflation, some economists maintain that under the conditions of a liquidity trap, large monetary injections are like pushing on a string. Views on which factors determine low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied, low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities. However, the view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth. Today, most economists favor a low and steady rate of inflation, the task of keeping the rate of inflation low and stable is usually given to monetary authorities. Rapid increases in quantity of the money or in the money supply have occurred in many different societies throughout history. By diluting the gold with other metals, the government could issue more coins without also needing to increase the amount of used to make them. When the cost of each coin is lowered in this way and this practice would increase the money supply but at the same time the relative value of each coin would be lowered. As the relative value of the coins becomes lower, consumers would need to give more coins in exchange for the same goods and these goods and services would experience a price increase as the value of each coin is reduced. Song Dynasty China introduced the practice of printing paper money in order to create fiat currency, during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the government spent a great deal of money fighting costly wars, and reacted by printing more money, leading to inflation. Fearing the inflation that plagued the Yuan dynasty, the Ming Dynasty initially rejected the use of paper money, historically, large infusions of gold or silver into an economy also led to inflation. This was largely caused by the influx of gold and silver from the New World into Habsburg Spain. The silver spread throughout a previously cash-starved Europe and caused widespread inflation, demographic factors also contributed to upward pressure on prices, with European population growth after depopulation caused by the Black Death pandemic
13.
Poverty threshold
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The poverty threshold, poverty limit or poverty line is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is higher in developed countries than in developing countries. In 2008, the World Bank came out with a figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity, the new IPL replaces the $1.25 per day figure, which used 2005 data. Most scholars agree that it better reflects todays reality, particularly new price levels in developing countries, the common international poverty line has in the past been roughly $1 a day. At present the percentage of the population living under extreme poverty is likely to fall below 10% according to the World Bank projections released in 2015. Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. Individual factors are used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually, charles Booth, a pioneering investigator of poverty in London at the turn of the 20th century, popularised the idea of a poverty line, a concept originally conceived by the London School Board. Booth set the line at 10 to 20 shillings per week, to secure the necessaries of a healthy life, which included fuel and light, rent, food, clothing, and household and personal items. Based on data from leading nutritionists of the period, he calculated the cheapest price for the minimum calorific intake and nutritional balance necessary and he considered this amount to set his poverty line and concluded that 27. 84% of the total population of York lived below this poverty line. Rowntree distinguished between primary poverty, those lacking in income and secondary poverty, those who had enough income, Absolute poverty is the level of poverty as defined in terms of the minimal requirements necessary to afford minimal standards of food, clothing, health care and shelter. For the measure to be absolute, the line must be the same in different countries, cultures, such an absolute measure should look only at the individuals power to consume and it should be independent of any changes in income distribution. Notice that if real income in an economy increases. Measuring poverty by a threshold has the advantage of applying the same standard across different locations and time periods. For example, a living in far northern Scandinavia requires a source of heat during colder months. The term absolute poverty is sometimes used as a synonym for extreme poverty. Absolute poverty is the absence of resources to secure basic life necessities. It depends not only on income but also on access to services, safe drinking water, Water must not come solely from rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby
14.
Gini coefficient
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The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income or wealth distribution of a nations residents, and is the most commonly used measure of inequality. It was developed by the Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini, the Gini coefficient measures the inequality among values of a frequency distribution. A Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality, where all values are the same, a Gini coefficient of 1 expresses maximal inequality among values. However, a greater than one may occur if some persons represent negative contribution to the total. For larger groups, values close to or above 1 are very unlikely in practice, the exception to this is in the redistribution of wealth resulting in a minimum income for all people. When the population is sorted, if their distribution were to approximate a well known function. The Gini coefficient was proposed by Gini as a measure of inequality of income or wealth, the global income Gini coefficient in 2005 has been estimated to be between 0.61 and 0.68 by various sources. There are some issues in interpreting a Gini coefficient, the same value may result from many different distribution curves. The demographic structure should be taken into account, Countries with an aging population, or with a baby boom, experience an increasing pre-tax Gini coefficient even if real income distribution for working adults remains constant. Scholars have devised over a dozen variants of the Gini coefficient, the line at 45 degrees thus represents perfect equality of incomes. The Gini coefficient can then be thought of as the ratio of the area lies between the line of equality and the Lorenz curve over the total area under the line of equality. It is also equal to 2A and to 1 - 2B due to the fact that A + B =0.5. If all people have non-negative income, the Gini coefficient can theoretically range from 0 to 1, in practice, both extreme values are not quite reached. If negative values are possible, then the Gini coefficient could theoretically be more than 1, normally the mean is assumed positive, which rules out a Gini coefficient less than zero. An alternative approach would be to consider the Gini coefficient as half of the mean absolute difference. The effects of income policy due to redistribution can be seen in the linear relationships. An informative simplified case just distinguishes two levels of income, low and high, if the high income group is u % of the population and earns a fraction f % of all income, then the Gini coefficient is f − u. An actual more graded distribution with these same values u and f will always have a higher Gini coefficient than f − u, the proverbial case where the richest 20% have 80% of all income would lead to an income Gini coefficient of at least 60%
15.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
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Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania
17.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
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Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
19.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
20.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
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China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
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Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
23.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
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Cotton
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Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the family of Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will tend to increase the dispersal of the seeds. The plant is a native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa. The greatest diversity of wild species is found in Mexico, followed by Australia. Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds, the fiber is most often spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile. Current estimates for world production are about 25 million tonnes or 110 million bales annually, China is the worlds largest producer of cotton, but most of this is used domestically. The United States has been the largest exporter for many years, in the United States, cotton is usually measured in bales, which measure approximately 0.48 cubic meters and weigh 226.8 kilograms. Cotton cultivation in the region is dated to the Indus Valley Civilization, the Indus cotton industry was well-developed and some methods used in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used until the industrialization of India. Between 2000 and 1000 BC cotton became widespread across much of India, for example, it has been found at the site of Hallus in Karnataka dating from around 1000 BC. Cotton fabrics discovered in a cave near Tehuacán, Mexico have been dated to around 5800 BC, the domestication of Gossypium hirsutum in Mexico is dated between 3400 and 2300 BC. Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets, and traded with fishing villages along the coast for supplies of fish. The Spanish who came to Mexico and Peru in the early 16th century found the people growing cotton and this may be a reference to tree cotton, Gossypium arboreum, which is a native of the Indian subcontinent. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Cotton has been spun, woven and it clothed the people of ancient India, Egypt, and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, in Iran, the history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era, however, there are few sources about the planting of cotton in pre-Islamic Iran. The planting of cotton was common in Merv, Ray and Pars of Iran, in Persian poets poems, especially Ferdowsis Shahname, there are references to cotton. Marco Polo refers to the products of Persia, including cotton. John Chardin, a French traveler of the 17th century who visited the Safavid Persia, during the Han dynasty, cotton was grown by Chinese peoples in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Mohamed Ali Pasha accepted the proposition and granted himself the monopoly on the sale and export of cotton in Egypt, and later dictated cotton should be grown in preference to other crops
25.
Aluminium
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Aluminium or aluminum is a chemical element in the boron group with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery-white, soft, nonmagnetic, ductile metal, Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is combined in over 270 different minerals. The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite, Aluminium is remarkable for the metals low density and its ability to resist corrosion through the phenomenon of passivation. Aluminium and its alloys are vital to the industry and important in transportation and structures, such as building facades. The oxides and sulfates are the most useful compounds of aluminium, despite its prevalence in the environment, no known form of life uses aluminium salts metabolically, but aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Because of these salts abundance, the potential for a role for them is of continuing interest. Aluminium is a soft, durable, lightweight, ductile. It is nonmagnetic and does not easily ignite, a fresh film of aluminium serves as a good reflector of visible light and an excellent reflector of medium and far infrared radiation. The yield strength of aluminium is 7–11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. Aluminium has about one-third the density and stiffness of steel and it is easily machined, cast, drawn and extruded. Aluminium atoms are arranged in a cubic structure. Aluminium has an energy of approximately 200 mJ/m2. Aluminium is a thermal and electrical conductor, having 59% the conductivity of copper. Aluminium is capable of superconductivity, with a critical temperature of 1.2 kelvin. Aluminium is the most common material for the fabrication of superconducting qubits, the strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. This corrosion resistance is reduced by aqueous salts, particularly in the presence of dissimilar metals. In highly acidic solutions, aluminium reacts with water to form hydrogen, primarily because it is corroded by dissolved chlorides, such as common sodium chloride, household plumbing is never made from aluminium
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Black market
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Parties engaging in the production or distribution of prohibited goods and services are members of the illegal economy. Examples include the trade, prostitution, illegal currency transactions. Violations of the tax code involving income tax evasion constitutes membership in the unreported economy, because tax evasion or participation in a black market activity is illegal, participants will attempt to hide their behavior from the government or regulatory authority. Cash usage is the medium of exchange in illegal transactions since cash usage does not leave a footprint. Common motives for operating in markets are to trade contraband, avoid taxes and regulations. Typically the totality of such activity is referred to with the article as a complement to the official economies, by market for such goods and services. Black money is the proceeds of a transaction, on which income and other taxes have not been paid. Because of the nature of the black economy it is not possible to determine its size. There is no single underground economy, there are many and these underground economies are omnipresent, existing in market oriented as well as in centrally planned nations, be they developed or developing. Different types of activities are distinguished according to the particular institutional rules that they violate. Illegal economy participants engage in the production and distribution of prohibited goods and services, such as trafficking, arms trafficking. The unreported economy consists of economic activities that circumvent or evade the institutionally established fiscal rules as codified in the tax code. A summary measure of the economy is the amount of income that should be reported to the tax authority but is not so reported. A complementary measure of the economy is the tax gap. In the U. S. unreported income is estimated to be $2 trillion resulting in a tax gap of $450–$500 billion, the unrecorded economy consists of those economic activities that circumvent the institutional rules that define the reporting requirements of government statistical agencies. A summary measure of the economy is the amount of unrecorded income. Unrecorded income is a problem in transition countries that switched from a socialist accounting system to UN standard national accounting. New methods have been proposed for estimating the size of the unrecorded economy, but there is still little consensus concerning the size of the unreported economies of transition countries
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Turkmenistan
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Turkmenistan has been at the crossroads of civilizations for centuries. In medieval times, Merv was one of the cities of the Islamic world and an important stop on the Silk Road. Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1881, Turkmenistan later figured prominently in the movement in Central Asia. In 1924, Turkmenistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, Turkmenistan possesses the worlds fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources. Most of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert, since 1993, citizens have received government-provided electricity, water and natural gas free of charge. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov until his death in 2006, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was elected president in 2007. According to Human Rights Watch, Turkmenistan remains one of the world’s most repressive countries, after suspending the death penalty, the use of capital punishment was formally abolished in the 2008 constitution. Historically inhabited by the Indo-Iranians, the history of Turkmenistan begins with its annexation by the Achaemenid Empire of Ancient Iran. In the 8th century AD, Turkic-speaking Oghuz tribes moved from Mongolia into present-day Central Asia, part of a powerful confederation of tribes, these Oghuz formed the ethnic basis of the modern Turkmen population. In the 10th century, the name Turkmen was first applied to Oghuz groups that accepted Islam, There they were under the dominion of the Seljuk Empire, which was composed of Oghuz groups living in present-day Iran and Turkmenistan. Turkmen soldiers in the service of the played a important role in the spreading of Turkic culture when they migrated westward into present-day Azerbaijan. In the 12th century, Turkmen and other tribes overthrew the Seljuk Empire, in the next century, the Mongols took over the more northern lands where the Turkmens had settled, scattering the Turkmens southward and contributing to the formation of new tribal groups. The sixteenth and eighteenth centuries saw a series of splits and confederations among the nomadic Turkmen tribes, by the 16th century, most of those tribes were under the nominal control of two sedentary Uzbek khanates, Khiva and Bukhoro. Turkmen soldiers were an important element of the Uzbek militaries of this period, in the 19th century, raids and rebellions by the Yomud Turkmen group resulted in that groups dispersal by the Uzbek rulers. According to Paul R. Spickard, Prior to the Russian conquest, Russian forces began occupying Turkmen territory late in the 19th century. From their Caspian Sea base at Krasnovodsk, the Russians eventually overcame the Uzbek khanates, in 1916 the Russian Empires participation in World War I resonated in Turkmenistan, as an anticonscription revolt swept most of Russian Central Asia. In 1924 the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was formed from the tsarist province of Transcaspia, by the late 1930s, Soviet reorganization of agriculture had destroyed what remained of the nomadic lifestyle in Turkmenistan, and Moscow controlled political life. The Ashgabat earthquake of 1948 killed over 110,000 people, during the next half-century, Turkmenistan played its designated economic role within the Soviet Union and remained outside the course of major world events
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Uzbekistan
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Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world. Located in Central Asia, it is a unitary, constitutional, presidential republic, comprising twelve provinces, one autonomous republic and a capital city. Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries, Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Once part of the Turkic Khaganate and later Timurid Empires, the region that includes the Republic of Uzbekistan was conquered in the early 16th century by Eastern Turkic-speaking nomads. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991, Uzbekistan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. The countrys official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in the Latin alphabet and spoken natively by approximately 85% of the population, however, Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians, Tajiks, Kazakhs, and others. A majority of Uzbeks are non-denominational Muslims, Uzbekistan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, UN, and the SCO. While officially a republic, non-governmental human rights organizations define Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state with limited civil rights. Uzbekistans economy relies mainly on commodity production, including cotton, gold, uranium, despite the declared objective of transition to a market economy, its government continues to maintain economic controls which imports in favour of domestic import substitution. Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres and it is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population. Among the CIS countries, it is the 4th largest by area, Uzbekistan lies between latitudes 37° and 46° N, and longitudes 56° and 74° E. It stretches 1,425 kilometres from west to east and 930 kilometres from north to south, Uzbekistan also shares a short border with Afghanistan to the south. Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country and it is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world, the other being Liechtenstein. In addition, due to its location within a series of endorheic basins, less than 10% of its territory is intensively cultivated irrigated land in river valleys and oases. The rest is vast desert and mountains, the climate in the Republic of Uzbekistan is continental, with little precipitation expected annually. The average summer high temperature tends to be 40 °C, while the winter low temperature is around −23 °C. Uzbekistan has a rich and diverse natural environment, the Aral Sea used to be the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth, acting as an influencing factor in the air moisture and arid land use. Since the 1960s, the decade when the misuse of the Aral Sea water began, it has shrunk to less than 50% of its former area, reliable, or even approximate data, have not been collected, stored or provided by any organization or official agency
29.
Remittance
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A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to an individual in his or her home country. Money sent home by migrants competes with international aid as one of the largest financial inflows to developing countries, Workers remittances are a significant part of international capital flows, especially with regard to labour-exporting countries. In 2014, $436 billion went to developing countries, setting a new record, overall global remittances totaled $582 billion in 2015. Some countries, such as India and China, receive tens of billions of US dollars in each year from their expatriates. In 2014, India received an estimated $70 billion and China an estimated $64 billion, Remittances are playing an increasingly large role in the economies of many countries. They contribute to growth and to the livelihoods of less prosperous people. According to World Bank estimates, remittances will total US$585.1 billion in 2016, for some individual recipient countries, remittances can be as high as a third of their GDP. Note, These are the largest 15 recipient countries of remittances only for the year 2013, World Bank data is used for all countries and years. The US has been the source of remittances globally in every year since 1983. Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland have been the next largest senders of remittances since 2007, a majority of the remittances have been directed to Asian countries like India, China, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Most of the remittances happen by the channel of agents, like Western Union, Ria Money Transfer. However, with the relevance and reach of the Internet, online. The flow of remittances to Jordan experienced rapid growth during the 1970s and 1980s when Jordan started exporting skilled labour to the Persian Gulf and these remittances represent an important source of funding for many developing countries, including Jordan. According to the World Bank data on remittances, with about 3 billion USD in 2010 Jordan ranked at 10th place among all developing countries, Jordan ranked among the top 20 recipients of remittances for the preceding decade. In addition, the Arab Monetary Fund statistics in 2010 indicate that Jordan was the third biggest recipient of remittances among Arab countries after Egypt, according to a World Bank Study, the Philippines is the second largest recipient for remittances in Asia. It was estimated in 1994 that migrants sent over US$2.6 billion back to the Philippines through formal banking systems, with the addition of money sent through private finance companies and return migrants, the 1994 total was closer to US$6 billion annually. The total is estimated to have grown by 7.8 per cent annually to reach US$21.3 billion in 2010, Remittances are a reliable source of revenue for the Philippines, accounting for 8.9 per cent of the countrys GDP. The Estrada administration in 2000 declared it The Year of Overseas Filipino Worker in the Recognition of the Determination and this declaration connects monetary remittances of overseas workers as the top foreign-exchange earnings in the Philippines
30.
Tajikistani ruble
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The rouble or ruble was the currency of Tajikistan between May 10,1995 and October 29,2000. It was subdivided into 100 tanga, although no coins or banknotes were issued denominated in tanga, like a number of other republics of the former Soviet Union, Tajikistan continued using the Soviet/Russian rouble a few years after independence. On July 26,1993, a new series of Russian ruble was issued, in Tajikistan, pre-1993 Russian rubles ceased to be legal tender on 8 January 1994. On May 10,1995, the Tajikistani ruble replaced the Russian ruble at a rate of 1 Tajikistani ruble to 100 Russian rubles, among the republics of the former Soviet Union, Tajikistan was the last to issue its own currency. Transnistria, a state, issued its own ruble before Tajikistan did. The reason for this was lack of funds and resources, with Tajikistan being the poorest of the former soviet republics. This was compounded further by the disorganization caused by the war in Tajikistan. By the end of the decade, rampant inflation caused by the problems had essentially destroyed the Tajikistani ruble. On October 30,2000, the somoni were introduced and replaced the ruble with 1 somoni equal to 1000 rubles, only one commemorative coin was issued for the Tajikistani ruble. These were aimed for the market and were never intended for use in circulation. The colour schemes can be traced back to the issues of the Russian Empire. Many of the old printing templates used for the production of Soviet notes were used on Tajikistans notes and this is because the Tajikistani ruble was printed under the direction of Goznak, the official Russian agency responsible for the production of banknotes and coins. Some of the old printing templates used for Soviet notes were used on Tajikistan notes
31.
Refugee
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A refugee, generally speaking, is a displaced person who has been forced to cross national boundaries and who cannot return home safely. Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by the state or the UNHCR if they formally make a claim for asylum. The lead international agency coordinating refugee protection is the United Nations Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations have a second Office for refugees, which is the UNRWA. This however is solely responsible for supporting Palestinian refugees and it refers to shelter or protection from danger or distress, from Latin fugere, to flee, and refugium, a taking refuge, place to flee back to. In Western history, the term was first applied to French Huguenots, after the Edict of Fontainebleau, who again migrated from France after the Edict of Nantes revocation. The word meant one seeking asylum, until around 1914, when it evolved to mean one fleeing home and this legal concept of a refugee was expanded by the Conventions 1967 Protocol. European Unions minimum standards definition of refugee, underlined by Art, in UN parlance, the concept of refugee also includes descendants of refugees but only in the case of two specific groups, viz. Palestinian refugees and Sahrawi refugees. The UN does not consider refugee status to be hereditary for any other group, the UNHCR also protects people in refugee-like situations. It gives credence to the notion that personal individualized ‘fear of being persecuted’ is the reason for needing support. War, upheaval, famine and pestilence do not in the conventional definition make for refugee status. It does not matter that civilian deaths as a proportion of deaths in war escalated to 10% in World War I and it only matters that persons fear the persecution of their state. Furthermore, not all reasons for seeking asylum in another country satisfy the definition of refugee according to article 1A of the 1951 Refugee Convention, fleeing droughts and hunger, fleeing economic hardship, natural disasters and not even war or terror satisfied the definition of 1951. The idea that a person who sought sanctuary in a place could not be harmed without inviting divine retribution was familiar to the ancient Greeks. However, the right to asylum in a church or other holy place was first codified in law by King Æthelberht of Kent in about AD600. Similar laws were implemented throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, the related concept of political exile also has a long history, Ovid was sent to Tomis, Voltaire was sent to England. By the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, nations recognized each others sovereignty, the term refugee is sometimes applied to people who might fit the definition outlined by the 1951 Convention, were it to be applied retroactively. The repeated waves of pogroms that swept Eastern Europe in the 19th, beginning in the 19th century, Muslim people emigrated to Turkey from Europe. The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 caused 800,000 people to leave their homes, various groups of people were officially designated refugees beginning in World War I
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GDP per capita
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The world sorted by their gross domestic product per capita at nominal values. Such fluctuations may change a countrys ranking from one year to the next, therefore, these figures should be used with caution. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a standard of living. Comparisons of national income are also made on the basis of purchasing power parity. PPP largely removes the exchange rate problem but not others, it does not reflect the value of output in international trade. On the whole, PPP per capita figures are more spread than nominal GDP per capita figures. Non-sovereign entities are included in the list because they appear in the sources and these economies are not ranked in the charts here, but are listed in sequence by GDP for comparison. All data are in current United States dollars
33.
Agriculture in Tajikistan
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Tajikistan is a highly agrarian country, with its rural population at more than 70% and agriculture accounting for 60% of employment and around 30% of GDP. In 2006 Tajikistan still had the lowest income per capita among the Commonwealth of Independent States countries, the low income and the high agrarian profile justify and drive the efforts for agricultural reform since 1991 in the hope of improving the population’s well being. Agricultural production has shown remarkable recovery since 1997 and today GAO is almost back to the 1991 level after more than doubling from the lowest point in 1997, cotton and wheat are the two main cash crops in Tajikistan, cultivated on nearly 70% of the cropped area. Cotton fiber is Tajikistans leading agricultural export commodity, contributing 16% of total exports, Khatlon Province is the main cotton growing area in Tajikistan, contributing 60% of the cotton harvest, Ferghana Valley in the north of Sughd Province contributes 30% and Gissar Valley another 10%. The Tajik part of Zeravshan Valley in the south of Sughd Province is too cold for cotton, the white gold of Tajikistan, as well as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, may well have contributed to the catastrophic drying of the Aral Sea during the Soviet times and thereafter. Wheat and barley are cultivated in rainfed areas, mostly in the plains of Khatlon province. Rice, on the hand, is grown in river valleys. The main rice producer in Tajikistan is Sughd Province, other crops include potatoes, vegetables, and melons, which are grown across the entire country. The north of the country produces apricots, pears, plums, apples, cherries, pomegranates, figs, fresh fruits are consumed locally, whereas dried fruits are a traditional export for Tajikistan. Animals raised in Tajikistan include chickens, cattle, sheep, goats, beef, mutton, and poultry are the most important meat products, cows milk, goats milk, cheese, and wool are also important. Silk production exists, but remains a minor industry. Only 28% of Tajikistans territory of 14.3 million hectares is agricultural land, of the total area of agricultural land, 21% is arable land, 3% is under perennial crops, and 76% is pastures and hay meadows. Arable agriculture in Tajikistan relies heavily on irrigation, the irrigated area increased steadily during the Soviet period from 300,000 hectares in 1950 to 714,000 hectares in 1990, on the eve of independence. There has been expansion of irrigation after 1990, and the irrigated area in 2006 is 724,000 hectares. Nearly 70% of arable land is irrigated, the irrigation systems of Tajikistan cover 737,700 ha of land, of which 300,000 ha are zones of machine irrigation. Pumping stations serve 40% of the areas, 64% of which are in the Sughd Province. An estimated 20% of irrigated lands in Tajikistan suffer from water shortages caused by regulation of river flows. In the area of the Istravshan, only 55% of water demands are met, in Kyzyl-Su–Yah-Su basin in Kulob area receives only 65% of required water
34.
Cereal
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A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are a source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils. When refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, in developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial. The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest, agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for organization of political power, as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, there is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods, fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and Western Asia domesticating flax. The first cereal grains were domesticated by early primitive humans, about 8,000 years ago, they were domesticated by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture, around the same time, millets and rices were starting to become domesticated in East Asia. Sorghum and millets were also being domesticated in sub-Saharan West Africa, while each individual species has its own peculiarities, the cultivation of all cereal crops is similar. Most are annual plants, consequently one planting yields one harvest, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, and spelt are the cool-season cereals. These are hardy plants grow well in moderate weather and cease to grow in hot weather. The warm-season cereals are tender and prefer hot weather, barley and rye are the hardiest cereals, able to overwinter in the subarctic and Siberia. Many cool-season cereals are grown in the tropics, however, some are only grown in cooler highlands, where it may be possible to grow multiple crops per year
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Potato
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The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial nightshade Solanum tuberosum. The word potato may refer either to the plant itself or to the edible tuber, in the Andes, where the species is indigenous, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes were introduced to Europe in the half of the 16th century by the Spanish. It is the worlds fourth-largest food crop, following maize, wheat, the green leaves and green skins of tubers exposed to the light are toxic. Wild potato species can be throughout the Americas from the United States to southern Chile. Following centuries of breeding, there are now over a thousand different types of potatoes. However, the importance of the potato is variable and changing rapidly. As of 2007 China led the world in production, and nearly a third of the worlds potatoes were harvested in China. The English word potato comes from Spanish patata, the Spanish Royal Academy says the Spanish word is a compound of the Taíno batata and the Quechua papa. The 16th-century English herbalist John Gerard used the terms bastard potatoes and Virginia potatoes for this species, potatoes are occasionally referred to as Irish potatoes or white potatoes in the United States, to distinguish them from sweet potatoes. The name spud for a small potato comes from the digging of soil prior to the planting of potatoes, the word spud traces back to the 16th century. It subsequently transferred over to a variety of digging tools, around 1845, the name transferred to the tuber itself. It was Mario Peis 1949 The Story of Language that can be blamed for the false origin. Pei writes, the potato, for its part, was in disrepute some centuries ago, some Englishmen who did not fancy potatoes formed a Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet. The initials of the words in this title gave rise to spud. Like most other pre-20th century acronymic origins, this is false, Potato plants are herbaceous perennials that grow about 60 cm high, depending on variety, with the leaves dying back after flowering, fruiting and tuber formation. They bear white, pink, red, blue, or purple flowers with yellow stamens, in general, the tubers of varieties with white flowers have white skins, while those of varieties with colored flowers tend to have pinkish skins. Potatoes are mostly cross-pollinated by insects such as bumblebees, which carry pollen from other potato plants, tubers form in response to decreasing day length, although this tendency has been minimized in commercial varieties
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Vegetable
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In everyday usage, a vegetable is any part of a plant that is consumed by humans as food as part of a meal. The term vegetable is somewhat arbitrary, and largely defined through culinary and it normally excludes other food derived from plants such as fruits, nuts, and cereal grains, but includes seeds such as pulses. The original meaning of the vegetable, still used in biology, was to describe all types of plant, as in the terms vegetable kingdom. At first, plants which grew locally would have been cultivated, nowadays, most vegetables are grown all over the world as climate permits, and crops may be cultivated in protected environments in less suitable locations. China is the largest producer of vegetables and global trade in agricultural products allows consumers to purchase vegetables grown in faraway countries, the scale of production varies from subsistence farmers supplying the needs of their family for food, to agribusinesses with vast acreages of single-product crops. Depending on the type of vegetable concerned, harvesting the crop is followed by grading, storing, processing, and marketing. Vegetables can be either raw or cooked and play an important role in human nutrition, being mostly low in fat and carbohydrates. Many nutritionists encourage people to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables, the word vegetable was first recorded in English in the early 15th century. It comes from Old French, and was applied to all plants. It derives from Medieval Latin vegetabilis growing, flourishing, a change from a Late Latin meaning to be enlivening, quickening. The meaning of vegetable as a plant grown for food was not established until the 18th century, in 1767, the word was specifically used to mean a plant cultivated for food, an edible herb or root. The year 1955 saw the first use of the shortened, slang term veggie, the broadest definition is the words use adjectivally to mean matter of plant origin to distinguish it from animal, meaning matter of animal origin. More specifically, a vegetable may be defined as any plant, part of which is used for food, a secondary meaning then being the edible part of such a plant. A more precise definition is any plant part consumed for food that is not a fruit or seed, falling outside these definitions are edible fungi and edible seaweed which, although not parts of plants, are often treated as vegetables. In everyday language, the fruit and vegetable are mutually exclusive. Fruit has a precise meaning, being a part that developed from the ovary of a flowering plant. This is considerably different from the words culinary meaning, while peaches, plums, and oranges are fruit in both senses, many items commonly called vegetables, such as eggplants, bell peppers, and tomatoes, are botanically fruits. The question of whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable found its way into the United States Supreme Court in 1893
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Fruit
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In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate seeds, accordingly, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the worlds agricultural output, and some have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. On the other hand, in usage, fruit includes many structures that are not commonly called fruits, such as bean pods, corn kernels, tomatoes. The section of a fungus that produces spores is called a fruiting body. Many common terms for seeds and fruit do not correspond to the botanical classifications, however, in botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary or carpel that contains seeds, a nut is a type of fruit and not a seed, and a seed is a ripened ovule. Examples of culinary vegetables and nuts that are botanically fruit include corn, cucurbits, eggplant, legumes, sweet pepper, in addition, some spices, such as allspice and chili pepper, are fruits, botanically speaking. g. Botanically, a grain, such as corn, rice, or wheat, is also a kind of fruit. However, the wall is very thin and is fused to the seed coat. The outer, often edible layer, is the pericarp, formed from the ovary and surrounding the seeds, the pericarp may be described in three layers from outer to inner, the epicarp, mesocarp and endocarp. Fruit that bears a prominent pointed terminal projection is said to be beaked, a fruit results from maturation of one or more flowers, and the gynoecium of the flower forms all or part of the fruit. Inside the ovary/ovaries are one or more ovules where the megagametophyte contains the egg cell, after double fertilization, these ovules will become seeds. The ovules are fertilized in a process starts with pollination. After pollination, a tube grows from the pollen through the stigma into the ovary to the ovule, later the zygote will give rise to the embryo of the seed, and the endosperm mother cell will give rise to endosperm, a nutritive tissue used by the embryo. As the ovules develop into seeds, the ovary begins to ripen and the ovary wall, in some multiseeded fruits, the extent to which the flesh develops is proportional to the number of fertilized ovules. The pericarp is often differentiated into two or three distinct layers called the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp, in some fruits, especially simple fruits derived from an inferior ovary, other parts of the flower, fuse with the ovary and ripen with it. In other cases, the sepals, petals and/or stamens and style of the fall off. When such other floral parts are a significant part of the fruit, it is called an accessory fruit, since other parts of the flower may contribute to the structure of the fruit, it is important to study flower structure to understand how a particular fruit forms. There are three modes of fruit development, Apocarpous fruits develop from a single flower having one or more separate carpels
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Rice
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Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima. As a cereal grain, it is the most widely consumed staple food for a part of the worlds human population. It is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production, after sugarcane and maize, wild rice, from which the crop was developed, may have its native range in Australia. Chinese legends attribute the domestication of rice to Shennong, the emperor of China. Genetic evidence has shown that rice originates from a single domestication 8, previously, archaeological evidence had suggested that rice was domesticated in the Yangtze River valley region in China. From East Asia, rice was spread to Southeast and South Asia, Rice was introduced to Europe through Western Asia, and to the Americas through European colonization. There are many varieties of rice and culinary preferences tend to vary regionally, in some areas such as the Far East or Spain, there is a preference for softer and stickier varieties. Rice, a monocot, is grown as an annual plant, although in tropical areas it can survive as a perennial. The rice plant can grow to 1–1.8 m tall, occasionally more depending on the variety and it has long, slender leaves 50–100 cm long and 2–2.5 cm broad. The small wind-pollinated flowers are produced in a branched arching to pendulous inflorescence 30–50 cm long, the edible seed is a grain 5–12 mm long and 2–3 mm thick. Rice cultivation is well-suited to countries and regions with low costs and high rainfall, as it is labor-intensive to cultivate. However, rice can be grown practically anywhere, even on a hill or mountain area with the use of water-controlling terrace systems. Although its parent species are native to Asia and certain parts of Africa, centuries of trade, the traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields while, or after, setting the young seedlings. The name wild rice is used for species of the genera Zizania and Porteresia. The Greek word is the source of all European words, the origin of the Greek word is unclear. It is sometimes held to be from the Tamil word அரிசி, however, Krishnamurti disagrees with the notion that Old Tamil arici is the source of the Greek term, and proposes that it was borrowed from descendants of Proto-Dravidian *wariñci instead. The varieties of rice are typically classified as long-, medium-, the grains of long-grain rice tend to remain intact after cooking, medium-grain rice becomes more sticky. Medium-grain rice is used for dishes, for risotto in Italy
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Irrigation
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Irrigation is the method in which a controlled amount of water is supplied to plants at regular intervals for agriculture. It is used to assist in the growing of crops, maintenance of landscapes. Additionally, irrigation also has a few uses in crop production. In contrast, agriculture that only on direct rainfall is referred to as rain-fed or dry land farming. Irrigation systems are used for dust suppression, disposal of sewage. Irrigation is often studied together with drainage, which is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from a given area, Irrigation has been a central feature of agriculture for over 5,000 years and is the product of many cultures. Historically, it was the basis for economies and societies across the globe, archaeological investigation has found evidence of irrigation where the natural rainfall was insufficient to support crops for rainfed agriculture. Ancient Egyptians practiced Basin irrigation using the flooding of the Nile to inundate land plots which had surrounded by dykes. The flood water was held until the sediment had settled before the surplus was returned to the watercourse. The Ancient Nubians developed a form of irrigation by using a device called a sakia. Irrigation began in Nubia some time between the third and second millennium BCE and it largely depended upon the flood waters that would flow through the Nile River and other rivers in what is now the Sudan. In sub-Saharan Africa irrigation reached the Niger River region cultures and civilizations by the first or second millennium BCE and was based on wet season flooding, terrace irrigation is evidenced in pre-Columbian America, early Syria, India, and China. These canals are the earliest record of irrigation in the New World, traces of a canal possibly dating from the 5th millennium BCE were found under the 4th millennium canal. Large scale agriculture was practiced and a network of canals was used for the purpose of irrigation. Ancient Persia as far back as the 6th millennium BCE, where barley was grown in areas where the rainfall was insufficient to support such a crop. The Qanats, developed in ancient Persia in about 800 BCE, are among the oldest known irrigation methods still in use today and they are now found in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. The system comprises a network of wells and gently sloping tunnels driven into the sides of cliffs. The noria, a wheel with clay pots around the rim powered by the flow of the stream, was first brought into use at about this time
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Forestry
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Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, using, conserving, and repairing forests and associated resources to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human and environment benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands, the science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences. A practitioner of forestry is known as a forester, other terms are used a verderer and a silviculturalist being common ones. Silviculture is narrower than forestry, being concerned only with forest plants, Forest ecosystems have come to be seen as the most important component of the biosphere, and forestry has emerged as a vital applied science, craft, and technology. Forestry is an important economic segment in various industrial countries, the preindustrial age has been dubbed by Werner Sombart and others as the wooden age, as timber and firewood were the basic resources for energy, construction and housing. The development of forestry is closely connected with the rise of capitalism, economy as a science and varying notions of land use. Roman Latifundiae, large estates, were quite successful in maintaining the large supply of wood that was necessary for the Roman Empire. Large deforestations came with respectively after the decline of the Romans, however already in the 5th century, monks in the then Byzantine Romagna on the Adriatic coast, were able to establish stone pine plantations to provide fuelwood and food. This was the beginning of the massive forest mentioned by Dante Alighieri in his 1308 poem Divine Comedy, the use and management of many forest resources has a long history in China as well, dating back to the Han Dynasty and taking place under the landowning gentry. A similar approach was used in Japan and it was also later written about by the Ming Dynasty Chinese scholar Xu Guangqi. In Europe, land rights in medieval and early modern times allowed different users to access forests. The notion of commons refers to the traditional legal term of common land. The idea of enclosed private property came about during modern times, however, most hunting rights were retained by members of the nobility which preserved the right of the nobility to access and use common land for recreation, like fox hunting. Systematic management of forests for a yield of timber is said to have begun in the German states in the 14th century, e. g. in Nuremberg. Typically, a forest was divided into sections and mapped. Large firs in the black forest were called „Holländer“, as they were traded to the Dutch ship yards, large timber rafts on the Rhine were 200 to 400m in length, 40m in width and consisted of several thousand logs. The crew consisted of 400 to 500 men, including shelter, bakeries, ovens, timber rafting infrastructure allowed for large interconnected networks all over continental Europe and is still of importance in Finland. The notion of Nachhaltigkeit, sustainability in forestry, is connected to the work of Hans Carl von Carlowitz
41.
Fish
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A fish is any member of a group of animals that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. They form a group to the tunicates, together forming the olfactores. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous, tetrapods emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well. However, traditionally fish are rendered obsolete or paraphyletic by excluding the tetrapods, because in this manner the term fish is defined negatively as a paraphyletic group, it is not considered a formal taxonomic grouping in systematic biology. The traditional term pisces is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification, the earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were soft-bodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessed notochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts, fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era, diversifying into a wide variety of forms. Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor that protected them from predators, the first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. Fish are abundant in most bodies of water and they can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams to the abyssal and even hadal depths of the deepest oceans. With 33,100 described species, fish exhibit greater species diversity than any group of vertebrates. Fish are an important resource for humans worldwide, especially as food, commercial and subsistence fishers hunt fish in wild fisheries or farm them in ponds or in cages in the ocean. They are also caught by fishers, kept as pets, raised by fishkeepers. Fish have had a role in culture through the ages, serving as deities, religious symbols, fish do not represent a monophyletic group, and therefore the evolution of fish is not studied as a single event. Early fish from the record are represented by a group of small, jawless. Jawless fish lineages are mostly extinct, an extant clade, the lampreys may approximate ancient pre-jawed fish. The first jaws are found in Placodermi fossils, the diversity of jawed vertebrates may indicate the evolutionary advantage of a jawed mouth. It is unclear if the advantage of a hinged jaw is greater biting force, improved respiration, fish may have evolved from a creature similar to a coral-like sea squirt, whose larvae resemble primitive fish in important ways. The first ancestors of fish may have kept the form into adulthood. Fish are a group, that is, any clade containing all fish also contains the tetrapods
42.
Aquaculture
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Aquaculture, also known as aquafarming, is the farming of fish, crustaceans, molluscs, aquatic plants, algae, and other aquatic organisms. Aquaculture involves cultivating freshwater and saltwater populations under controlled conditions, and can be contrasted with commercial fishing, mariculture refers to aquaculture practiced in marine environments and in underwater habitats. According to the FAO, aquaculture Farming implies some form of intervention in the process to enhance production, such as regular stocking, feeding, protection from predators. Farming also implies individual or corporate ownership of the stock being cultivated, further, in current aquaculture practice, products from several pounds of wild fish are used to produce one pound of a piscivorous fish like salmon. Particular kinds of aquaculture include fish farming, shrimp farming, oyster farming, mariculture, algaculture, particular methods include aquaponics and integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, both of which integrate fish farming and plant farming. The indigenous Gunditjmara people in Victoria, Australia, may have raised eels as early as 6000 BC, Aquaculture was operating in China circa 2500 BC. When the waters subsided after river floods, some fish, mainly carp, were trapped in lakes, early aquaculturists fed their brood using nymphs and silkworm feces, and ate them. A fortunate genetic mutation of carp led to the emergence of goldfish during the Tang dynasty, japanese cultivated seaweed by providing bamboo poles and, later, nets and oyster shells to serve as anchoring surfaces for spores. Romans bred fish in ponds and farmed oysters in coastal lagoons before 100 CE, in central Europe, early Christian monasteries adopted Roman aquacultural practices. Aquaculture spread in Europe during the Middle Ages since away from the seacoasts, improvements in transportation during the 19th century made fresh fish easily available and inexpensive, even in inland areas, making aquaculture less popular. The 15th-century fishponds of the Trebon Basin in the Czech Republic are maintained as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a remarkable example is a fish pond dating from at least 1,000 years ago, at Alekoko. Legend says that it was constructed by the mythical Menehune dwarf people, in first half of 18th century, German Stephan Ludwig Jacobi experimented with external fertilization of brown trouts and salmon. He wrote an article Von der künstlichen Erzeugung der Forellen und Lachse, by the latter decades of the 18th century, oyster farming had begun in estuaries along the Atlantic Coast of North America. The word aquaculture appeared in an 1855 newspaper article in reference to the harvesting of ice, in 1859, Stephen Ainsworth of West Bloomfield, New York, began experiments with brook trout. By 1864, Seth Green had established a commercial fish-hatching operation at Caledonia Springs, near Rochester, by 1866, with the involvement of Dr. W. W. Fletcher of Concord, Massachusetts, artificial fish hatcheries were under way in both Canada and the United States. When the Dildo Island fish hatchery opened in Newfoundland in 1889, the word aquaculture was used in descriptions of the hatcheries experiments with cod and lobster in 1890. By the 1920s, the American Fish Culture Company of Carolina, Rhode Island, during the 1940s, they had perfected the method of manipulating the day and night cycle of fish so that they could be artificially spawned year around. Californians harvested wild kelp and attempted to supply around 1900
43.
Mining in Tajikistan
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Tajikistan has rich deposits of gold, silver, and antimony. The largest silver deposits are in Sughd Province, where Tajikistan’s largest gold mining operation also is located, russia’s Norilsk nickel company has explored a large new silver deposit at Bolshoy Kanimansur. More than 400 mineral deposits of some 70 different minerals have been discovered in Tajikistan, including strontium, tungsten, molybdenum, bismuth, salt, lead, zinc, fluorspar and these minerals have been found suitable for mining. Uranium, an important mineral in the Soviet era, remains in quantity but is no longer extracted. The Tajikistan Aluminium Company, a smelter, is the countrys only large-scale production enterprise in the mining sector. Tajikistan hosts the annual Mining World Tajikistan, an exhibition on mining in Dushanbe. The mining industry reached a level in the 9th–11th centuries, visible by ancient mining openings. These are evident in the Karamazar Mountains Mansura mine, in the Kondara Ore Gorge, the Koninukra Silver Mine, Pamir, Darvaza, Kukhilal, the archaeologist Mikhail Evgenievich Masson explored early mining sites in the eastern Tajikistan mountains. Rare metals were not mined in Tajikistan before the World War II, the output of concentrates of rare metals in 1943, however, exceeded that of 1941 by sixty times, and that of 1942 by ten times. No copper, molybdenum, tungsten, or zinc has been produced in recent years and mining activity since the 1990s has been disrupted due to civil war. Mineral exports contribute substantially to the economy of Tajikistan. According to the 2008 statistics of the World Bank, aluminium contributed about 50% to the exchequer, with aluminium. Gold mining in Tajikistan is significant to the mineral market. According to estimates from the Tajik Academy of Sciences, gold deposits are estimated at 429.3 tonnes. Tajikistan’s largest gold mining operation is located in Sughd Province, with most gold being mined southeast of Gharm, in the Pamir Mountains, in the Yakhsu Valley, Chkalovsk, and Jilau. It has taken off since independence from Russia with 2,700 kilograms of gold mined in 2000 compared to 1,100 in 1996. The Darvaz joint venture, in the Hatlon region of Eastern Tajikistan, did exploit the gold from 1997 to 1999, however, operational problems arose following damage to the placer mining operation that took place during hostilities in the area in December 1996. Mills and the quarters at the facility were damaged as result of the hostilities
44.
Gold
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Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
45.
Silver
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Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
46.
Antimony
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Antimony is a chemical element with symbol Sb and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite, Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were powdered for use as medicine and cosmetics, often known by the Arabic name, kohl. Metallic antimony was known, but it was erroneously identified as lead upon its discovery. In the West, it was first isolated by Vannoccio Biringuccio, for some time, China has been the largest producer of antimony and its compounds, with most production coming from the Xikuangshan Mine in Hunan. The industrial methods for refining antimony are roasting and reduction with carbon or direct reduction of stibnite with iron, the largest applications for metallic antimony is an alloy with lead and tin and the lead antimony plates in lead–acid batteries. Alloys of lead and tin with antimony have improved properties for solders, bullets, Antimony compounds are prominent additives for chlorine and bromine-containing fire retardants found in many commercial and domestic products. An emerging application is the use of antimony in microelectronics, Antimony is in a pnictogen and has an electronegativity of 2.05. In accordance with periodic trends, it is more electronegative than tin or bismuth, Antimony is stable in air at room temperature, but reacts with oxygen if heated to produce antimony trioxide, Sb2O3. Antimony is resistant to attack by acids, four allotropes of antimony are known, a stable metallic form and three metastable forms. Elemental antimony is a brittle, silver-white shiny metalloid, when slowly cooled, molten antimony crystallizes in a trigonal cell, isomorphic with the gray allotrope of arsenic. A rare explosive form of antimony can be formed from the electrolysis of antimony trichloride, when scratched with a sharp implement, an exothermic reaction occurs and white fumes are given off as metallic antimony forms, when rubbed with a pestle in a mortar, a strong detonation occurs. Black antimony is formed upon cooling of antimony vapor. It has the crystal structure as red phosphorus and black arsenic, it oxidizes in air. At 100 °C, it transforms into the stable form. The yellow allotrope of antimony is the most unstable and it has only been generated by oxidation of stibine at −90 °C. Above this temperature and in ambient light, this metastable allotrope transforms into the more stable black allotrope, elemental antimony adopts a layered structure in which layers consist of fused, ruffled, six-membered rings. The nearest and next-nearest neighbors form an octahedral complex, with the three atoms in each double layer slightly closer than the three atoms in the next. This relatively close packing leads to a density of 6.697 g/cm3
$8.508 billion (2013 est.) [1]
39.6% (December 2012 est.)
2.1 million (2012)
Turkey 19.7%
Kazakhstan 17.6%
Switzerland 13.7%
Iran 8.7%
Afghanistan 7.5%
Russia 5.1%
China 4.9%
Italy 4.8% (2015)[3]
This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook website https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html.