DUSHANBE, January 31, Asia-Plus  -- The first four Tajik commodity producers have got their own barcodes. 

Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Amon Ilyayev, the head of the Association GS-1 Tajikistan, said that the tobacco processing plant in Sughd’s Ghafurov, limited liability companies Eskimo-Master and Elite-Istaravshan as well as closed joint-stock company (OJSC) Sitoari Tilloi joined the association at the end of last year.  

According to him, the project for introduction of a bar coding system in Tajikistan has been launched in Tajikistan under support of the Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia and with technical assistance with Tajik Consumers’ Union.  

The Association GS-1 Tajikistan was established at Tajikistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) as part of this project, Ilyayev said.  

Last August, the Tajik association joined the International Association GS1with similar associations of Pakistan, Nigeria and Benin.  

Ilyayev added that prefix of GS1 Tajikistan barcode given by the International Association GS1 is “488”. 

A barcode (also bar code) is a machine-readable representation of information (usually dark ink on a light background to create high and low reflectance which is converted to 1s and 0s). Originally, barcodes stored data in the widths and spacings of printed parallel lines, but today they also come in patterns of dots, concentric circles, and text codes hidden within images. Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers or scanned from an image by special software. Barcodes are widely used to implement Auto ID capture (AIDC) systems that improve the speed and accuracy of computer data entry. 

In point-of-sale management, the use of barcodes can provide very detailed up-to-date information on key aspects of the business, enabling decisions to be made much more quickly and with more confidence.

GS1 is a leading global organization dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards and solutions to improve the efficiency and visibility of supply and demand chains globally and across sectors. The GS1 system of standards is the most widely used supply chain standards system in the world.