Uzbekistan Senate Probes Silk Industry's Untapped Potential

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Despite creating 470,000 jobs and targeting $120 million in exports this year, Uzbekistan's silk industry is leaving most of its value on the table — and the Senate wants the government to explain why.

At the 16th plenary session of the Oliy Majlis Senate, lawmakers voted to send a formal parliamentary inquiry to the government over the state of the country's sericulture sector, citing a widening gap between the industry's stated ambitions and its operational reality.

Gains That Mask Deeper Weaknesses

The session acknowledged genuine progress. Investment in silkworm feed supply chains and expanded cocoon production and processing has generated more than 470,000 new jobs across the sector. To bolster the raw material base, 29.2 million mulberry saplings have been planted along farmland boundaries, irrigation canals, and forest fund territories. Production targets for the current year stand at 30,100 tonnes of cocoons, with export revenues projected to reach $120 million.

But those headline figures drew scrutiny rather than celebration.

Structural Problems Laid Bare

Senators identified a series of persistent structural failures undermining the sector's competitiveness. Of the country's 54,000 hectares of mulberry plantations, more than 15,000 hectares — roughly 28% — remain underproductive. The adoption of science-based innovative technologies is advancing too slowly, producers lack modern technical knowledge and practical skills, and a portion of silkworm rearing facilities fail to meet basic sanitary requirements.

Lawmakers also pointed to poor practices in silkworm feeding and cocoon storage as direct drags on productivity — problems that reflect organizational shortcomings rather than resource constraints alone.

Seed supply dependency emerged as a separate concern: insufficient commercialization of domestic research and an underdeveloped local seed production sector have left the industry reliant on imported silkworm seeds.

The Value-Chain Bottleneck

Perhaps the sharpest critique was reserved for the industry's downstream failure. Only approximately 30% of Uzbekistan's total sericulture output currently undergoes deep processing — meaning roughly 70% of the country's silk production exits the value chain at its lowest-margin stages, leaving the bulk of potential earnings unrealized.

This bottleneck in value-added processing represents the central tension in an industry that has expanded its raw output but has not yet built the industrial capacity to convert that output into higher-value finished products for export markets.

Parliamentary Pressure

Following the debate, the Senate formally resolved to submit a parliamentary inquiry to the government addressing the current challenges facing the sericulture industry, with a focus on improving efficiency and international competitiveness.

The inquiry mechanism, while non-binding in the traditional legislative sense, carries institutional weight as a formal demand for accountability — signaling that the chamber views the sector's structural problems as requiring government-level intervention, not incremental adjustment.

Uzbekistan has historically positioned sericulture as a strategic rural industry, and the Senate's move suggests that patience with slow-moving reforms is running thin.