By: Seshadri Ramkumar, Professor, Texas Tech University, USA
Consistency in quality and contamination free cotton are much sought after by global cotton mills.
Free of plastic contamination, objective quality evaluation and consistency are the characteristics, which provide premium for cotton according to global experts who are touring the United States of America as part of Cotton Council International sponsored program.
About 40 people representing 16 countries such as Turkey, Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Japan, Guatemala, Peru to name a few visited Lubbock yesterday and interacted with the cotton industry people in the High Plains of Texas. Discussions focused on the efforts undertaken by the United States’ cotton sector to get a handle on the plastic contamination, improving the strength and length of cotton and timely delivery of cotton.
Ms. Sagrika Jain, manager in yarn business at India-based Vardhman Textiles, which has over one million spindles emphasized the importance of clean cotton in producing high quality yarns. The trade war has adversely affected the Indian yarn industry, stated Jain.
China still imports yarn from countries like Vietnam and Indonesia that have high quality yarns made from contamination free cotton. These countries import quality cotton that enhances the quality and the value of their output. Thavasi Vijayakumar, technical director at PT Indah Jaya, which has 600,000 ring spindles stated that his company uses cotton imported from the United States, which is 90% of its consumption. The company exports 70% of its yarn production to China. “It is time that India starts using United States’ cotton.” He added that due to low moisture content and less trash, yarn realization could increase by 4 to 6 percent. Textile sector in India has to strengthen its processing, garment and technical textiles sector. There seems to be a consensus among the participants who are knowledge about the Indian textile sector on this aspect.
