Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 8
By Fakhri Vakilov-Trend:
Since 2020, Uzbekistan will stop exporting raw cotton and begin to process the entire crop domestically, supplying high value-added products such as textiles abroad, as was announced by Uzbekistan’s Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade Sardor Umurzakov, Trend reports citing Uzbek media.
According to the official, Uzbekistan expects to export products not only to Central Asian countries, although this market is quite vast, but also to non-CIS countries, including the USA and China.
Umurzakov stressed that according to forecasts, this year the export of textile products from Uzbekistan will reach $2 billion, and by 2025 it will grow to $8 billion.
In recent years, Uzbekistan has gradually reduced the supply of cotton fiber abroad, which was previously one of the main export items. It was reported that, starting from the 2017 harvest, when 1.2 million tons of fiber were produced, this type of raw material is to be mainly processed domestically.
According to State Statistic Committee, in 2010, the export volume of Uzbek cotton fiber amounted to $1.5 billion. The indicator fell to $736 million in 2015 and to $222 million in 2018.
---
Follow author on Twitter:@vakilovfaxri