Industry And Cluster | News & Insights

Textile Industry heading towards severe crisis on cotton front!

Published: October 13, 2021
Author: Manali bhanushali

Indian textile industry has appealed to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene immediately to stabilise the cotton prices, as the cotton prices have surged to the peak level in the last 11 cotton seasons especially in the international market.

As the current market price is ruling very high, Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) will not be able to procure any cotton under MSP during the current season.

The industry is heading towards a severe crisis on cotton front as the trade is likely to procure bulk volume of cotton during the season.

Ravi Sam, Chairman, The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) said that though CCI has been offloading bulk volume to the trade, some price stability could be observed as the Government had directed the CCI to adopt industry-friendly trading policies during the last few years whenever CCI exercised MSP operations that yielded some benefits for the MSME textile units.

SIMA Chairman has appealed to the Prime Minister to introduce an innovative Cotton Procurement and Trading Scheme for CCI by providing Government funding to procure 10 to 15 per cent of the cotton that arrives at the market during the season and create a strategic stock for price stability, sell the cotton only to the actual users in a staggered manner till the end of the season and maintain some buffer stock for the next season.

It is worth mentioning here that the New York Futures (NYF) Index that used to hover around 70 to 80 cents per pound is now ruling around 110 cents thus creating a panic situation and uncertainties in the business of cotton textiles and clothing products.  The NYF has increased around 25 per cent in the last 15 days.

The Indian cotton price, though currently attractive due to comfortable closing stock position, has also increased from Rs. 41,900/- per candy during December 2020 to Rs. 57,000/- per candy during the first week of October 2021 (Sankar-6 variety).

SIMA Chairman stated that the Indian cotton season 2021-22 started with over 100 lakh bales opening stock, is likely to produce around 355 lakh bales, consume around 330 lakh bales, import around 10 lakh bales and thereby leave around 135 lakh bales for export and the carry over stock.

He fears that the export might exceed 100 lakh bales in the current season due to US sanction on Xinjiang Chinese cotton that accounts 10 per cent of the world cotton production resulting in not only shortage of cotton but also abnormal speculation in the cotton market.

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