NCC with Gary Adams on CSD Web

08 Feb '06

3 min read

Dr. Gary Adams, Vice President Economics and Policy Analysis with the US National Cotton Council, has canvassed a number of issues relating to the global cotton market outlook on the weekly Cotton Seed Distributors Ltd (CSD) Web on Wednesday video.

He said production had been high, with a 120 million bale world crop in 2004, followed by a 115 million bale crop. Brazil's production has expanded from 2 million to 6 million bales in recent years.

”Short term they're facing some challenges with the strength of their currency. It's reducing their competitiveness; it's increased their input cost, so that may slow some of their expansion."

“But when you look at the amount of land that Brazil has you have to think that going forward they're still going to be a country that can expand production and probably a majority of that additional production will come onto the world market,” he said.

Commenting on consumption trends, he noted recent growth had been driven largely by China, and to a more minor extent by India and Pakistan.

“When you look at those three countries together they're accounting for some 60-65 per cent of global mill consumption of cotton. China is obviously the largest at 45 million bales, as estimated for this year, and I think you really have expect those three countries to continue to increase their share of world mill consumption."

“The US textile industry has obviously been under a lot of pressure from imported textile product so it's gone from 11 million bales down to its current level of about 6 million bales."

More Cotton Seed Distributors Ltd News... More Textiles News - Australia...