India’s Australian cotton imports have increased over the last year, more than doubling to a value of $283.766 million in 2022—more than four times what they were in 2017. The record-high pricing of the natural fiber may be to blame for this increase. India waived import taxes on cotton in order to boost the sector during the harvest market year (October-September) in 2021–2022.
Despite the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) between India and Australia, which went into effect in the final week of 2022, this increase in imports was brought on by the unusual price increase. The agreement allows for quantitative constraints on duty-free imports, but more imports were made last year as a result of the high costs.
The textile sector in India imported 80.860 million kg (475,652 bales of 170 kg) of cotton last year, worth $283.766 million. In comparison to the prior year, when imports were valued at $66.011 million (quantity 30.344 million kg), this indicates a 4.28-fold increase in value and a 2.66-fold rise in volume. Long before the arrival of the new crop, in the third quarter of last year, when Indian cotton prices were still very high, imports of cotton reached their highest level at $173.933 million (48.789 million kg).
According to TexPro, the value of India’s cotton imports in 2020 was $6.352 million (3.358 million kg), $33.068 million (17.284 million kg), and $57.451 million (27.268 million kg) in 2018. In the upcoming years, it is anticipated that cotton imports from Australia would increase since India’s textile sector may demand additional imports. When prices rise too much, the industry will benefit from duty-free access to Australian cotton.
