DUSHANBE, 05.04.2021 (NIAT Khovar) – The government of Tajikistan intends to reduce the export of cotton fiber in the next three years by 20,000 tonnes. This is stated in the Forecast of the main macroeconomic indicators of Tajikistan for 2021-2023.

According to the document, this year it is planned to export 70,000 tonnes of fiber in the amount of $102.5 million. This figure in 2022 will be 60,000 tonnes ($ 90.2 million), and in 2023 – 50,000 tonnes ($ 78.5 million).

Earlier it was reported that light industry enterprises in Tajikistan process only one fifth of the cotton fiber produced in the country.

According to the relevant departments of the country’s economic bloc, over 100 ginning factories operate in the republic, producing more than 100,000 tonnes of cotton fiber, of which only about 20,000 tonnes are processed by the textile enterprises of Tajikistan per year.

This is despite the fact that the capacity of spinning factories allows processing more than 70 thousand tons of cotton fiber per year.

Meanwhile, experts note that Tajikistan should not annually increase the area of cotton sowing and the volume of production of this crop until new modern processing facilities are created that can process the current volume of cotton fiber produced in the country.

Experts say that some of the existing production facilities, due to outdated equipment and lack of working capital, are not able to process at least half of the volume of fiber that is produced in the republic.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, about 410,000 tonnes of raw cotton (3 kg of raw cotton — 1 kg of fiber) were harvested in Tajikistan last year. In total, Tajikistan last year exported more than 100,100 tonnes of cotton fiber worth about $ 136 million. The main buyers of Tajik cotton are Turkey, Kazakhstan and China.