Chinese cotton imports flare-up in 2010

18 Jan '11

2 min read

China's cotton imports increased significantly in 2010, due to a larger gap in domestic cotton supply. China imported 126,000 tons of cotton in November 2010, representing an increase of 31.3 percent from October, and 11.8 percent from the same time of previous year.

In the first 11 months of 2010, China's total imports achieved 2.377 million tons, a substantial increase of 81 percent over the same period of previous year. While in the 2009-10 cotton year total imports registered 2.5047 million tons, up 73 percent year on year.

China's policy of increasing import quotas greatly promoted cotton imports. China issued 1.9 million tons of import quotas at the end of 2009, then again issued 800,000 tons quotas in late May 2010, bringing the total import quotas to 2.70 million tons.

In addition, relevant authorities had also issued 700,000-900,000 tons of sliding tax quotas through non-public way in early July 2010. China totally issued around 3.594 million tons of import quotas in 2010.

Among importing countries, the United States remained China's largest source of cotton imports, India's ranked the second and Uzbekistan came third. Overseas cotton price sharply rose in the fourth quarter, higher than domestic cotton price, which increased import enthusiasm of traders to some extent.

China's total imports of foreign cotton marked 2.377 million tons from January-November, far under the issued quota quantity of 3.594 million tons, leaving a lot of quotas unused, therefore, imported cotton could not fully compensate for the gap in China's cotton demand.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - China

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