TASHKENT: Uzbekistan, the world’s third largest cotton exporter, said Wednesday it had put up for sale over 600,000 tonnes of cotton fibre this year in a bid to capitalise on soaring global prices. “Uzbekistan has put up 600,000 tonnes of cotton fibre for sale from this year’s crop,” the Central Asian state’s ministry for foreign economic relations said in a statement. Uzbekistan’s Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyayev touted the country’s harvest at the opening of the Central Asian’s state annual cotton fair, where officials expected to clinch export deals worth up to $500 million.