DUSHANBE, December 13, 2008, Asia-Plus — Tajik farmers have completed this year’s cotton-harvesting campaign, producing only 249,022 tons of raw cotton, which is only 63.2 percent of the national cotton target and 16.8 percent fewer than last year.
In 2008, Tajikistan increased the cotton harvest target to 552,200 tons from 547,000 in 2007, while this year’s cotton-sown area has been reduced to 253,000 hectares from 254,279 of 2007.
Last year, Tajikistan yielded 419,597 tons of raw cotton, which was 76.3 percent of the target.
In 2009, cotton is planned to be planed on an area of 250,000 hectares.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Muhammadi Ormonov, the head of the grains and industrial crops department within the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), said that a 40 percent decline in cotton fiber prices at the Liverpool Exchange might negatively impact domestic cotton producers. To minimize this negative impact it is necessary to organize processing the whole cotton Tajikistan produces into manufactured goods inside the country, the expert said.
“The president charged to organize processing up to 80 percent of the Tajik cotton into manufactured in Tajikistan within 2-3 years,” said Ormonov, “In this case, purchasers may appear inside the country and the manufactured goods may be sold on external market at higher prices.”
Asked about the possibility of considerable reduction in cotton-sown area in the country following decline in world cotton fiber prices, the MoA official noted that cotton will remain strategic crops for Tajikistan and no considerable reduction of crop area is expected.
“We might reduce cotton-sown area and increase area under wheat but expenses on it will be much higher than prices of imported wheat,” said he, “It is more profitable to grow cotton and use money made from cotton sales for purchasing wheat in a large amount.”
On the measures to mitigate effects of the global financial crisis on domestic farming units, Ormonov said that the ministry suggested that the government should allocate funds to purchase cotton from farmers. “Specialists from the ministry have established that an average price of cotton price is now some 600-700 dollars in the country but we should take into consideration that under government’s resolution the cotton-growing farms are free in realization of their product,” he said.
Tajikistan’s Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange said that on December 12, the price of one ton of medium-fiber cotton at the Liverpool Exchange was 1,223 US dollars, while 3-4 months ago it was 1,800 dollars. In the meantime, the price of one ton of the fine-fiber cotton remains unchanged – 1,620 dollars.
It is to be noted that according to figures provided by the State Committee for Statistics, Tajikistan has exported 67,000 tons of cotton fiber for US$89.5 million over the first ten months of this year and cotton fiber’s share accounted for 7.2 percent of Tajikistan’s exports for the report period.
Compared to January-October 2007 an average price of one ton of cotton fiber in Tajikistan has increased by US$221, reaching US$1,336.
In the meantime, the cotton has not been exported via the Tajik Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange over the past month; just inconsiderable amount of Tajik cotton has been exported through other channels.
