According to the latest forecast released by India’s CAI, India’s cotton production in 2019/20 has been revised to 36 million bales (170 kg per bale, equivalent to approximately 6.12 million tons), which is still significantly lower than USDA’s September forecast of 303,000 tons. In the past few years since I came to USDA, I have been overestimating India’s cotton production with “other motives”, but this situation has changed in 2020/21.
In late to mid-September, a survey of 13 major domestic cotton-related units by the Indian research institution Cogencis showed that India’s cotton output in 2020/21 is expected to be 38 million bales (equivalent to about 646,000 tons of lint); Some cotton processing companies and exporters in Gujarat and Maharashtra in India believe that if the weather in October/November is good, India’s cotton output in 2020/21 is expected to reach 39-40 million bales (about 6.63-6.8 million tons), and the USDA report predicts This year, India’s cotton output is 6.532 million tons, which is significantly narrower or even overlaps with the data released by Indian government departments, cotton companies, and research institutions.
Recently, some Indian cotton trade bodies and government agencies stated that due to increased global demand, India’s cotton exports in 2020/21 are expected to increase by 20-30% year-on-year this year (CAI predicts Indian cotton exports in 2019/20 5 million bales), especially spinning mills and traders in China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries are very fond of Indian cotton. The first reason is that compared with Australian cotton, US cotton, Brazilian cotton and Uzbek cotton, in 2020/ The price advantage of Indian cotton in 2021 is very prominent. It is the cheapest and has sufficient supply, which is conducive to large and medium-sized cotton-related enterprises to concentrate and purchase orders on a large scale (the quality consistency is slightly better); secondly, although Trump and the US government will impose restrictions on “Xinjiang” The implementation period of the “extensive import ban on cotton products” has been postponed for two months (from September 30 to November 30), but it is only temporarily shelved rather than revoked. The direction of the policy is still difficult to judge. Chinese textile and apparel suppliers and processing companies From the perspective of risk aversion and cost reduction, priority is given to signing contracts to purchase Indian cotton; and it is reported that the United States has recently begun investigating Vietnam’s trade practices, which may push cotton orders from Vietnamese yarn mills to India; third, in 2020/21, Texas, Main producing areas such as the southeastern cotton region and the delta have been hit by tropical storms and precipitation one after another, and the probability of both cotton production and quality declining has increased significantly. However, the main cotton producing areas in India have had good weather this year, and the export market has become significantly more substitutable for U.S. cotton.
Cotton textile companies in Henan, Jiangsu, Shandong and other places said that in the past half month, Zheng Cotton has driven up the spot price of domestic cotton, and the price difference between domestic and foreign cotton has continued to expand (ICE’s main contract has not yet exceeded 70 cents) / pound, the Zhengfu CF2101 contract has already reached 14,400 yuan / ton); coupled with the phased increase in textile and clothing foreign trade orders since late September (mainly due to the release of demand during Thanksgiving and Christmas), not only the port bonded, Inquiries and transactions of Indian cotton for customs clearance are booming, and the signing of Indian cotton for the September/October shipping date of 2019/20 is also “low fever” (the focus of Chinese buyers’ procurement is CCI rotation resources, BCI resources, and organic cotton resources), especially The shipment of Indian quilts with low prices and moderate spinnability at the port is very active, and the inventory has been falling again and again. Despite this, according to industry analysts, with the launch of CCI’s massive MSP acquisition, the end of the raw material procurement cycle in China and Southeast Asian countries, the large-scale listing of US cotton and African cotton in 2020/21, the second outbreak of the global new crown pneumonia epidemic, etc., negative news has fallen. , the expectation of a substantial growth in Indian cotton exports this year is likely to be nothing. </p
