As of August 19, Xinjiang has had no new confirmed cases of COVID-19 for 4 consecutive days, and the autonomous region’s continued improvement in epidemic prevention and control is also being further consolidated. It is mid-to-late August, and the new cotton year is about to enter. Xinjiang cotton harvesting and processing tightly affects the heartstrings of the industry. Amid the epidemic, new cotton is about to be launched. Are the ginners in Xinjiang ready?
Since the emergence of confirmed cases of the new crown epidemic in Xinjiang in mid-July, the local area has immediately implemented strict personnel movement control measures. The cotton farmland management work has been less affected, but the preparation work of the local ginning factory has inevitably been affected to a certain extent. . It is understood that in previous years, preparatory work such as maintenance of cotton gins in Xinjiang was usually carried out from the beginning of August. If the cotton gins have plans to upgrade equipment, they usually start preparations in June. However, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic this year, the maintenance time of the cotton gins has been shortened. etc. are generally delayed, especially for manufacturers that use a large number of mainland skilled workers. It is also understood that the number of new production lines in northern Xinjiang this year is quite prominent, which has put forward higher requirements for the number of skilled workers. The shortage of skilled workers has become an urgent problem for various large and small ginning factories to solve.
A local cotton senior person told reporters that companies that planned to produce in Xinjiang packaging factories this year completed the contracting work from May to June. As domestic cotton prices fell sharply to the 10,000 yuan mark in the early stage, some contractors were optimistic about cotton prices in the post-epidemic era, believing that purchasing low-priced seed cotton in September was a profit opportunity. In May, the number of negotiations for factory contracting plans surged, resulting in contracting. Factory costs have increased. A person who has been contracting factories in Northern Xinjiang for a long time said that last year the cost of contracting a factory was 1.7 million yuan (1.5 million rental + 200,000 labor, etc.), and this year the cost of contracting a ginning factory has risen to 1.9 million yuan.
However, things went counterproductive. Contrary to what the contractors thought at the time, the complexity and uncertainty of the COVID-19 epidemic were daunting. The overseas epidemic situation was still severe, and domestic downstream consumption had not seen a significant improvement. As a result, the optimistic expectations of these factory contractors have also turned from strong to weak. The person in charge of a cotton ginning factory in Karamay said that although there are concerns about the increase in production lines this year to seize the market, the current COVID-19 epidemic dominates the market development, and there are still about 1 million tons of old cotton stocks in Xinjiang. The combination of multiple factors will also Make acquisitions as the market moves. As for whether there is a measurement standard for this year’s purchase price, the person said that he will participate in market purchases steadily and try to avoid the situation where the price of seed cotton opens low and goes up due to rush to harvest. However, the golden period for purchase is only more than 20 days. In this changeable situation, Above all, capital preservation is the top priority. </p
