CHINA: Auction Will Check Rising Cotton Prices

China's National Cotton Trade Market announced that about 200,000 tons of cotton reserves would be auctioned at the beginning of October in an attempt to check rising prices, Asia Pulse reported today. Experts warned cotton growers not to anticipate extraordinarily high prices and store their produce. Although China's cotton production was expected to fall short of demand this year, the Government would use its huge cotton stocks to balance supply and demand, said Zhu Lanfen, director of the Enterprise Reform Department of the State Textile Industry Bureau. Insiders estimate China has about two million tons of cotton in stock. China produced 3.1 million tons of cotton yarn in the first half of this year, up 16.8 per cent year-on-year. A national cotton conference hosted by the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Co-operatives in August decided that a suitable cotton price would be around 8,600 yuan (about $1.036) per ton. The price is higher than last year's suggested cotton price of the co-operative at 7,600 yuan (about $US915.70), and also about 10 per cent higher than last year's actual purchasing price at about 7,800 yuan (about $939.80) per ton.