China : Textile sector sinks into ‘overseas cotton dependency syndrome’

Domestic cotton growers have been adversely affected by growing demand from textile industry for imports, as they receive negligible protection from local authorities.

Though cotton harvest season ended recently, farmers are not gaining as the market price has dropped to lowest of levels of about 60 cents per pound within past two years, and the cultivators are forced to adopt the policy of high yield at cheap rates.

Even then, the enterprises prefer to buy imports than utilize domestic output.

Official sources from Shijiazhuang Changshan Hengxin Textile informed that the price of cotton in international market is around 50 cents per pound and after adding the import taxes it is almost on level with the local prices.

Besides, cotton from other countries, especially the US, goes through complete mechanized picking leaving hardly any room for impurities, as against china where crop is largely handpicked.

It is reported that in the US, cotton output value is just over US $3 billion per year, but the US government provides to the farmers with more than $3 billion various subsidies for cotton production and export.

In China, cotton growers do not have ‘preferential treatment’. It is learned that while rice, wheat and other crops enjoy subsidies, cotton has been excluded.

Due to the limited exports, the traditional cotton producing provinces of Henan, Anhui, and Shandong have reduced the size of their growing areas inrecent years.
 
Statistics show that the current domestic cotton shortfall will reach 4.51 million tons, or about 40 percent of the total demand.

From 2005, the state began to pay more attention to the shrinking cotton acreage this year, central government demanded local efforts to stabilize cotton growing area, with the aim of maintaining 80 million mu (one hectare = 15 mu) and achieving the total output of 6 million tons.

Some experts have estimated that in 2010, China’s spinning capacity will reach 15 million tons, accounting for half of the world total production.
 
Fibre2fashion, News Desk - China