Uzbekistan will cash in on the high price of cotton by selling 600,000 metric tons from this year’s crop, according to Uzbekistan’s Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyayev. The sale is expected to generate contracts worth about $500 million, Mirziyayev said during the opening ceremonies of the country’s annual cotton fair in Tashkent. More than 300 companies from 34 countries are in attendance at the event, including buyers from Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and South Korea. Those seven nations are expected to buy the majority of the cotton up for sale.

While some Western companies were also attending the event, they are increasingly joining the boycott of Uzbekistan due to allegations that much of the cotton produced comes from forced child labor in the fields. In 2009, Uzbekistan passed legislation against forced child labor, and the country also has signed the relevant conventions of the International Labor Organization.

Local and international human rights organizations believe that forced child labor is still being used. Many have noticed that there is a considerable number of soldiers in the cotton fields this harvest season, which activists say are there to keep reporters and photographers away.

Uzbekistan--the world’s sixth-largest producer and third-largest exporter--produces about a million tons of cotton each year.