“Uzbekistan is no longer exporting gas and cotton” – Shavkat Mirziyoyev

“I personally do not know how many tons of cotton were harvested this year. We abolished the quota system; if farmers and clusters are interested, they will continue growing cotton. Otherwise, no one will force them. Previously, teachers, doctors and even other intellectuals had to work on the fields for 3-4 months picking up cotton,” the president said.

According to him, recently there had been a request to purchase Uzbek cotton from one of the major trade partners.

“I said, “there is no cotton for export, we are fully processing it.” He did not believe me much though. Because in the past cotton and gas were our main products of export.

Now we are exporting neither our cotton nor our gas. At times, we are even buying gas from abroad. The reason is that our industry is developing. Even if these two main products are not sold abroad, the volume of our exports has increased 5-6 times compared to 2016,” Shavkat Mirziyoyev said at the meeting.