Western Buyers Boycott Uzbekistan's Cotton

Cotton and Textile Fair in the Central Asian country's capital Tashkent, not a single Western buyer signed a contract for Uzbekistan's cotton, the government cotton-marketing agent Uztsentrimpex said Wednesday.

Western buyers were boycotting Uzbekistan cotton following allegations from rights groups that Uzbekistan allows child labor to be used in cotton growing. The government's marketer doesn't expect a further significant decline in its cotton exports, however, as Russian and Asian buyers were replacing Western buyers at a considerable rate.

Although analysts don't expect the shift in cotton-trade flows from Uzbekistan to the East to affect global cotton prices, the Western boycott demonstrates the strength of many retailers' drive to stamp out the use of child labor in the cotton industry.

Cotton orders placed at Uzbekistan's international fair fetched $550 million for this year, or about 600,000 metric tons, but sales fell 50,000 tons shy of those at the same event last year. In 2010, Uzbekistan said it earned more than $500 million from cotton sales at the fair.

Russian buyers bought 40% of the Uzbekistan cotton available during the fair, with the remaining 60% going to buyers from China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, South Korea and Singapore.