This means a lower availability of ELS cottons from Egypt, meaning the only alternative for 80's/100's and higher is US Pima.
The major difference from last season is that mills have nearby requirements. Going into harvest this time last year, several of the large ELS markets had bought huge stocks the previous season and were therefore covered.
These stocks have been depleted now and by not having bought too much during 2005/06 then we should expect more purchases for fourth and first quarter this season.
As far as China is concerned on the demand side, it is going to come down to what the real Xinjiang ELS crop figure is. Estimates at the beginning of the season were in the 100,000 mt range, however some private sources now believe the crop will be larger than this.
It still means that China will need to import ELS, but it is doubtful that we are going to see an import figure of 260,000 bales of Pima if the Xinjiang crop really is larger.
Even so, with some regular Pima buyers hopefully back in the market this year as well as the pick up in India and Peru on the import front we could be back on track.
In our opinion, either the Giza 86 price is too high, or the Pima price is too low and to us it seems that with 750-800,000 bales of Pima and 125,000 mt of Giza 86, the Pima price is probably about right and the Giza 86 price needs to come down. An added pressure on the price of Giza 86 will be a possible quality problem with the Pima crop.
-Ltd..jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Thermore (Far East) Ltd.")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Limited (TSllC Ltd)")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF)")
