Basic textiles comprising fibers, spun and filament yarns shipment were worth US$1,053 million or INR7.730 crore, accounting for about 3.4% of total merchandise exported from India during the month.
We have intentionally refrained from analyzing year on year comparison (April 2021 with April 2020) since April 2020 was an abnormal month with values abysmally low and outliers to the trend.
Spun yarns shipment totaled 138 million kg worth US$491 million or INR3,600 crore. The unit value realization of all types of spun yarn averaged US$2.3.55 per kg. Bangladesh was the largest market for spun yarns, topping both in terms of volume and value. China followed by 14% of total value.
Cotton yarn export was 110 million kg worth US$408 million (INR2,997 crore). These were destined to 79 countries at an average price of US$3.70 a kg, up US cents 25 from previous month. Bangladesh was the top imported of cotton yarn, China, Portugal, Vietnam, and Egypt.
100% man-made fibre yarns exports were at 8.8 million kg, comprising 1.7 million kg of acrylic yarn, 3.3 mil-lion kg of viscose yarn and 3.6 million kg of polyester yarn. Viscose yarn was worth US$11.5 million or INR85 crore, exported at an average price of US$3.48 per kg in April to 29 countries. Of these, the major market was Turkey, followed by Bangladesh and Belgium. Polyester spun yarns export was worth US$8.6 million exported to 41 countries at average unit price of US$2.37 a kg. Turkey was the largest importer of polyester yarn, followed by USA and Brazil.
Blended spun yarns worth US$6.6 million were exported in April, including 1.6 million kg of PC yarns and 0.5 million kg of PV yarns. Bangladesh was the largest importers of PC yarn from India followed by Brazil while Iran was the single largest importer of PV yarns from India followed by Turkey.
All kinds of filament yarns shipment totaled just 8 million kg, valued at US$11 million or INR85 crore.
Cotton shipment in April was 11.6 lakh bales worth INR2,800 crore or US$382 million. This takes the total export to 78 lakh bales worth US$16,867 crore or US$2,322 million in the first eight months of 2020-21 marketing season. China was the largest market for Indian cotton export during April, followed by Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
Export price realization for cotton averaged INR142 a kg or US cents 87.56 per pound during April. This was much below Cot look A index, the global spot price benchmark and higher than domestic spot price for benchmark Gujarat Shankar-6. During the month, Cotlook averaged US$91.15 per pound while Shankar-6 was at US cents 78.22 per pound, which implied Indian cotton was still competitive in global market.
