DUSHANBE, December 29, 2008, Asia-Plus — The world financial crisis has already affected the cotton sector in Tajikistan, having led to a 40-percent decrease in cotton fiber prices at the Liverpool Cotton Exchange, director of the Institute of Agriculture within the Academy of Sciences Saidjamol Saidov said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
However, the crisis will not bring to reduction in cotton areas in the country, according to him. “It is just necessary to solve the problem of processing the cotton into manufactured goods inside the country, while not export it as raw materials” the researcher said.
He further added that a number of spinning mills would be constructed in Dushanbe, Khujand and Qurghon Teppa in the near future and incomes from export of manufactured goods would be 13-14 times higher than incomes from cotton fiber exports.
Cotton makes an important contribution to both the agricultural sector and the national economy, accounting for 60 percent of agricultural output. At the national level, it is an important source of both export earnings and tax revenue. Tajikistan is the world’s fourth largest exporter of cotton, and there is strong demand on international markets for its high quality product.
We will recall that Tajikistan produced 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.
According to the State Committee for Statistics, cotton fiber’s share has accounted for 7.3 percent in Tajikistan exports for January-November 2008. Over this period, Tajikistan exported 73,800 tons of cotton fiber for 97.4 million dollars. Compared to January-November 2007 an average price of one ton of cotton fiber has increased by 184 dollars, reaching 1,319 dollars.
