Uzbekistan cotton output down

Uzbekistan, the world's No 2 cotton exporter, produced 747,084 tonnes of cotton fibre in January-September compared to 763,109 tonnes in the same period last year, the state statistics committee said on Tuesday. During the first nine months of 2007, cotton yarn production rose to 111,746 tonnes from 105,820 tonnes in the same year-ago period.
Last week the Agriculture Ministry said farmers had met the official target set for this year and gathered at least 3.6 million tonnes of raw cotton this year compared to 3.63 million tonnes in the whole of 2006. In September the government said the Central Asian state would produce 1.00-1.05 million tonnes of fibre after processing raw cotton in 2007, down from 1.17 million tonnes year earlier.