China Cotton Import Monthly Report – February

In February, due to the spring festival, the total cotton import kept dropping with a great gap comparing with it was in 2012. The compiled influence of price, quota and quality cause sharp growth of import without quota. The price of import is mostly under 1% tariff or full tariff. General trade dominates and processing trade kept growing. India and U.S.A took the top of source countries. Qingdao, Shanghai and Nanjing are the largest destination ports, and Shandong, Jiangsu and Beijing are the main source of buyers.

According to Customs, for February, China imported cotton of 378,800 ton, 78,700 ton less than last month by 17%; and 237,300 ton less on Y-o-Y level, by 38.5%. The average import price was 1,878 USD per ton, 12 USD up over January, as 0.7%, while decreased by 18.7% on Y-o-Y level. The total import for the first half of 2012-13 season was 2,207,000 ton, 15.6% down compared with the same timeframe last year. The accumulated import for first two month of 2013 was 836,000 ton and 11.3% down Y-o-Y.

In February, trade for processing imported materials increased while the other means declined. The general trade decreased to less than half, goods under special customs supervision took 26.1%, and the inbound and outbound goods in bonds warehouses took 12.4%.

Among import sources, India and U.S.A continued to increase and took nearly 80% of all. India still ranked the top and contributed almost half of all. Brazil, Australia and Uzbekistan kept their dropping trend.

General average price in February increased slightly, due to the growth of trade for processing imported materials with 4.9% price increase. The average price of other trades dropped: general trade 0.1%, trade for processing supplied materials 17.3%; trade of goods in customers’special supervision 1.8%, the inbound and outbound goods in bonds warehouses 1.1%.

The average import prices of five major sources all gained slight growth. The ratio for Australia, India and Brazil and Uzbekistan were 0.8%, 1.6%, 1.7% and 2.5%.

Main destination ports, including Qingdao, Shanghai and Nanjing, accounts for more than 80% of all??

Shandong, Jiangsu and Beijing are the main source of buyers. Over 70% of all buyers came from the above regions.