Tajik and Uzbek textile workers are planning to launch joint venture in the field of silkworm breeding this year.
Tajik enterprise manufacturing atlas and adras (vivid and fine traditional fabrics), Atlasi Khujand, and Samarkand textile workers, engaged in processing cocoon and producing silk tread, are planning to launch the joint venture Samarkand-Sughd Silk this year.
Atlasi Khujand director Azimjon Ghafourov told Sughdnews that his enterprise already has experience of joint activities with foreign companies. “In particular, cooperation has been established with the Swiss company LTD Bezema,” Ghafourov said.
Atlasi Khujand with annual capacity of 50,000 running meters of fabric now produces 120 types of atlas and 34 types of adras. More than 50 specialists and workers work with Atlasi Khujand in one shift.
Empowerment of Atlasi Khujand and the launch of JV venture Samarkand-Sughd Silk will help Tajikistan make a big step forward in the rehabilitation of the sericulture industry.
It is to be noted that silkworm breeding has gone into decline in Tajikistan over the past thirty years. Over the reporting period, production of silkworm cocoons has fallen in the country 12 times: from 4,528 tons in 1991 to 387 tons in 2021.
In 2022, Tajikistan produced little more than 378 tons of silkworm cocoons, which is 13.9 percent less than in the previous years of 2021.
For comparison, Uzbekistan last year produced more than 25,000 tons of silkworm cocoons.
Over the first six months of last year, Tajikistan reportedly exported 2500 tons of raw cocoons worth 1.5 million US dollars.
According to Uzbekistan’s Committee for Statistics, Tajikistan imported silks worth 1.8 million US dollars from Uzbekistan last year.
