Chinese Cotton Sector
Chinese cotton production in 2006 related to a planted area of nearly five and a half million hectares (5,410,000 hectares), i.e. eighty one million ‘mous’ (a ‘mou’ is the traditional area unit used in rural China, which is about a fifteenth of a hectare ) (81,130,000 ‘mous’). According to the official Chinese Statistics Office figures, production in 2006 was 6,730,000 tonnes. Of this, a third of the production came from the Xinjiang province, 2,180,000 tonnes. Based on these production figures, it is estimated that it was needed to import 4,300,000 tonnes of cotton in order to meet the demand, but in fact between September 2006 and August 2007 (which is the annual cotton season in China) the country only had to import 2,280,000 tonnes of cotton, i.e. 47% less than predicted. Two million tonnes less than predicted. Actual production in Xinjiang was over 3,200,000 tonnes of cotton. Production in China is in the region of 7,700,000 tonnes.
Mill production is increasing quite rapidly. According the Chinese Statistics Office, between September 2006 and August 2007 China produced 19,030,000 tonnes of yarn. It is up 18.8%, but is however an increase that is 8 points down on the same period in the previous year.
According to a study undertaken by the Chinese Cotton Association, in 2007 in China the planted area of cotton was 82,600,000 ‘mous’ (around 5 and a half million hectares), a slight increase on the previous year. Production forecasts anticipate production remaining stable against the previous year, with perhaps a slight increase to reach around 7,700,000 tonnes once again.
Demand in China is constantly increasing. Specialists estimate that textile production for 2007 will continue to grow. It is thought that the production of cotton thread will increase 10% to reach around 21 million tonnes. With a cotton requirement of 12 million tonnes, China needs to import around 4 million tonnes of cotton.
Read more about this topic: China Cotton Association, Industry
Famous quotes containing the word cotton:
“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)