China: Cotton and Products Update
Cotton consumption is lowered for both 2018/19 and 2019/20, mostly due to uncertain global demand for Chinese textiles. Slower-than-expected world growth and proposed U.S. additional tariffs on China’s textile exports (additional 15 percent on September 1, 2019 along with other textile products on December 15, 2019) has stymied downstream market confidence. Imports for 2019/20 are unchanged at 2.0 million tons. Despite lower 2018/19 consumption, imports are higher and attributed to stronger-than-expected import data. Production is projected down slightly to 6.0 million tons and lower than 2018/19.
