By Ben Aris In Samarkand Uzbekistan’s textile sector is booming. Cotton has long been Uzbekistan’s “white gold.” Its importance to the country is so great that the cotton plant features in its national emblem; exports of its high-grade cotton sustained the country during the worst of the economy crisis that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But in 2017 newly elected President Shavkat Mirziyoyev took the radical step of banning exports of raw cotton entirely. Industry was forced to go up the value chain overnight and massively expand the production of textiles. Private cotton f…