Uzbekistan cotton fibre output jumps

Uzbekistan's cotton fibre output weighed in at 636,241 tonnes in January to June, rising by 29.6 percent over the first half of 2004, the State Statistics Committee said on Monday. The Central Asian state of 26 million boosted its raw cotton output to 3.53 million tonnes last year from a paltry 2.86 million tonnes in 2003.
The government expects cotton fibre output to rise to 1.15 million tonnes in the 2004/05 season from 890,000 tonnes in the 2003/04 season.
Cotton fibre exports may soar to 700,000 tonnes this season from 570,000 tonnes in the 2003/04 period, analysts say.
The impoverished Muslim nation relies heavily on export revenues from cotton, which totalled $876 million, or nearly a fifth of all the nation's exports, last year.