Boycott on Uzbek textile may be canceled by early 2020

The international coalition Cotton Campaign may cancel the boycott of major brands in relation to textile products of Uzbekistan by early 2020, chairman of the “Uztextileindustry” Association Ilkhom Khaydarov said.

“Now, in my opinion, there are small details that will help us get rid of the so-called boycott against cotton products. Our partners say that this may happen in early 2020,” Khaydarov noted.

According to him, these partners still want to observe the harvest this year after the progress that has been made recently. It should be recalled that on March 25, 2019, the United States Department of Labor made a final decision on the removal of Uzbek cotton from the list prohibiting government procurement of goods manufactured using forced labor or child labor.

“Representing the interest of our industry, we would like this to happen literally tomorrow, and we have reasons for that,” the head of “Uztextileindustry” emphasized.

He noted that the US authorities, the European Union and representatives of the International Labor Organization (ILO) “have made it clear that they will completely remove the elements of forced labor” in cotton harvest in Uzbekistan.

It should be recalled that in 2013, the Cotton Campaign organized a movement on boycotting Uzbekistan's textile products due to the use of child and forced labor in picking cotton in the country. Many well-known world brands – Nike, Zara, GAP, Levi Strauss, H&M, Burberry, Calvin Klein and several others joined the boycott.