China : Cotton Planting To Increase By 16% In 2003

China is planning a 16 per cent increase in its cotton growing area, and will plant 4.865 million hectares of cotton this year according to a survey carried out by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Cotton growing is expected to increase significantly in the Yellow River valley areas, including Shandong, up 35 per cent, Shanxi, up 30 per cent, Hebei, up 17 per cent, Shaanxi, up 19 per cent, Henan, up 11 per cent.

Along the Yangtze River the increase is forecast to be 17.3 per cent in Anhui, 13.2 per cent in Jiangsu, and 5.5 per cent in Sichuan.

The National Bureau of Statistics estimates China's cotton growing areas were 4.18 million hectares in 2002, and the output was 4.92 million tons.