Indian Cotton Federation reelects J Thulasidharan as president

The meeting also saw the election of other key office bearers. P Nataraj, managing director of K.P.R. Mill Limited, and Aditya Krishna Pathy, deputy managing director of The Lakshmi Mills Co Ltd, were elected as vice presidents. Nishanth Asher of Ravji Shamji Asher was named the secretary, and Chetankumar Joshi of Shree Enterprises will serve as the joint secretary.

Speaking about the global economy at the AGM, president Thulasidharan said, “Global economy growth is on a set back from 2.7 per cent in 2022 to 3 per cent in 2023-2024. Synchronising headline inflation to fall from 8.7 per cent to 6.7 per cent in 2023 and 5.2 per cent in 2024 as per recent survey. Financial turbulences followed by recessionary trend has affected many countries in Europe, USA, Asian countries etc as post COVID after effect, though globally these could control effectively, India in particular. Market watchers are optimistic, things could revive in the beginning of 2024. Russia Ukraine war has been, a cause for commodity price surge.”

Talking about the India cotton economy, Thulasidharan stated: “No doubt, India stood out, as best performing economy with post COVID-19 turbulences. A bold initiative to keep the economic wheel moving forward. Cotton economy in this season met with the demand recession in terms of finished goods like yarn, apparel, garments etc. In the global market, which lead to less export demand for one or another, value added products in a period. Central government could not withdraw the 11 per cent import duty on cotton altogether, though few moderations was permitted for imports from Australia and Africa etc.

“FTA negotiation is being continued with more and more countries like Europe etc. Australia, we could succeed partly on duty free imports. The government has decided to postpone the implementation of QC order for one year till August 28, 2024, in view of stakeholders’ demand and protest from MSME’s and mill sectors on practical problems during cotton supply chain, as the new season is yet to begin. So far cotton sowing for the ensuing season has crossed 12.7 million ha and with the yearly average yield, we may end with 330 to 340 lakh bales of 170 kgs for 2023-24 season.

“Current season, so far arrivals are around 335 lakh bales and now unusually the average daily arrivals are around 15K to 20K bales. This includes new crop arrivals from early sown area from Karnataka, North, Central belts. Farmers may start releasing cotton kept with them, since festival season began, they need to buy inputs for new season cotton crop. Central govt. has increased the cotton MSP by 10 per cent for ensuing season as a regular exercise. The ruling cotton prices are above MSP. Regarding carry over stock, our assumption is that we may end with 50 to 55 lakh bales altogether.”

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)