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“I want to double my labour force to 100 – and open a private shop”

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Otcha Jalolidinova, circa 1989.

Otcha Jalolidinova in 2004.

Worker at Ms Jalolidinova’s silk factory.

From the collective farm to entrepreneurial success in the Fergana Valley

Otcha Jalolidinova, Uzbek silk entrepreneur, speaks with Head of Media Relations Jeff Hiday in Kokand.

The young ladies in colourful dress perform a mysterious dance, plucking wisps of thread from a cauldron of cocoons, then drawing it towards the fingers of a spider-like machine. Nearby, other women tap out intricate rhythms on wooden looms.

The scene is a silk factory in Central Asia’s Fergana Valley. The choreographer is Otcha Jalolidinova, a former worker on a kolkhoz (collective farm) who turned a long-ago chance visit to one of the region’s pre-eminent silk towns, Marghilon, into a new career.

That was nearly 10 years ago, shortly after the Soviet Union’s break-up. Ms Jalolidinova doesn’t specifically recall the fall of the Berlin Wall. “At that time the people were not so much interested in the external world’s politics as they are today,” she says. But she felt the ramifications.

After Uzbekistan became independent, Ms Jalolidinova says, people began to take advantage of the opportunity to own private businesses and earn more than their usual monthly salary. “But people really didn’t know how to start a business or even what kind of business they should pursue,” she says.

When her kolkhoz sent her to Marghilon one day on business, Ms Jalolidinova was astonished to see how the town’s craftsmen went about producing atlas silk, with its unusual weaving technique and bold patterns. “This really was a very lucky incident in my life,” she says.

Ms Jalolidinova struck a deal with one of the atlas “masters” to provide an education in silk production. Back in Kokand, her hometown, she found three young ladies willing to travel to Marghilon for training. In the meantime, Ms Jalolidinova pulled together her modest savings to rent a small facility. The trainees returned after three months, and Ms Jalolidinova began buying silk thread for them to weave.

Sales were tiny, but enough to build on. In 1998 she bought machinery to turn cocoons into silk thread, then the next year to combine three silk threads into a single reel.

Luck contributed to her start. Persistence and know-how kept Ms Jalolidinova going. But clearly some extra capital was required to take her burgeoning business to the next level.

This is where one of the Fergana Valley’s up-and-coming private banks came in. In 2003 Hamkorbank – possessing a small-business credit line funded by the EBRD Japan-Uzbekistan Small Business Programme and supported by the German consultants LFS – extended a six-month loan of 3.5 million Uzbek sums ($3,300) for equipment, and then a four-month loan of 1 million Uzbek sums for working capital.

Ms Jalolidinova bought more machinery to combine the reels into spools, as well as a twinning machine, and began acquiring more raw materials. She now has 11 tonnes of cocoons in stock, and produces up to 1,000 kg of silk each month. Nearly 50 workers – all of them women – work the cocoon cauldrons and looms.

Of course Ms Jalolidinova is not finished. She wants to buy a building across the road, to expand production and stop paying rent. She envisions doubling her staff to 100, opening a private shop to sell the silk, and eventually exporting more of her goods. “The atlas cloth is 100% produced by hand and is highly appreciated all over the world,” she says.

As she bids farewell to a visitor, Ms Jalolidinova has one last comment: “I need to get the bank to raise my credit limit!”

9 November 2004