Representatives from the UN Tajikistan Office for Peace-Building, the OSCE, and Russia\'s Glasnost Foundation noted at a 3 May forum on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day that Tajikistan has taken \"a step forward toward freedom of the press.\" They stressed, however, that much work remains to be done. Zafar Saidov, director of Tajikistan\'s Khovar national news agency, praised a presidential decree exempting the media from the value-added tax. \"Now freedom of the media and speech, in the broad sense of the word, is at a sufficiently firm level compared with previous stages,\" Saidov said. (ITAR-TASS)