The cotton market is one of the most exciting and diverse commodity industries in the world, providing employment to hundreds of millions of farmers and processors and serving as an engine of economic growth in both developed and developing countries across six continents.
Cotton is simultaneously an agricultural product and industrial raw material, and the ICAC serves this industry as a source of timely, market-relevant statistics and scientific information and as a forum for international cooperation.
The ICAC is an association of governments of cotton producing, consuming and trading countries. The Committee was formed in 1939, and the Secretariat was established in 1946. The annual budget is US$1.7 million, of which about 85% come from government assessments and 15% from the sale of subscriptions and participant fees at meetings and seminars.
There are eleven members of the secretariat representing ten countries; all work from one office in Washington. Documents are published in English, French and Spanish, monthly summaries are available in Russian and annual summaries are available in Arabic and Russian.
Mission:
To assist governments in fostering a healthy world cotton economy. The role of the ICAC is to raise awareness, to provide information and to serve as a catalyst for cooperative action on issues of international significance.
Functions:
Provide statistics on world cotton production, consumption, trade and stocks and to identify emerging changes in the structure of the world cotton market;
Serve as a clearing house for technical information about cotton and cotton textiles;
Serve as an objective forum for discussion of cotton matters of international significance;
Represent the international cotton industry before UN agencies and other international organizations.
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