Description
China’s Cotton Import Overview
According to CRI’s analysis, in recent years, the growth rate of China’s cotton spinning industry is slowing down and labor costs, land rent and the prices of other production factors are rising in China, which increases the costs of cotton planting and decreases the profits and area of cotton planting. Meanwhile, cotton production capacity is being transferred to Xinjiang at a lower cost from other parts of China.
In 2020, the cotton planting area in China was about 3.168 million hectares, down 5.10% YOY. China is about to run out of cotton reserves and face a short supply of cotton. However, the growth of cotton planting areas is restricted by land policies such as returning farmland to forest. In particular, because of the rising labor costs of cotton planting, cotton fields in some regions have been turned into fields of other crops.
According to CRI’s analysis, China’s cotton production in 2020 was about 5.9105 million tons, up 0.36% YOY. However, it was still much lower than the production of 7.6 million tons in 2008. In 2020, China imported 2.16 million tons of cotton, up 16.8 % YOY. In the same year, China’s cotton imports increased significantly mainly because imported cotton had a certain price advantage. In this year, China’s cotton imports showed a rising tendency.
In the earlier stage, cotton imports continued to decline due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. According to customs statistics, China imported 900,000 tons of cotton from January to June of 2020, down 23.7% YOY.
In the later stage, with the recovery of textile production and consumer demand, imports grew faster. From July to December of 2020, China imported 1.26 million tons of cotton, an increase of 88.1% YOY. For the whole year of 2020, China imported a total of 2.16 million tons of cotton, up 16.8% YOY.
The Chinese government introduces a quota administration for cotton import, and the tariff rate on cotton in quota is only 1%. The tariff rates on cotton imports out of the tariff rate quota range from 40% to 125%, depending on the sources and varieties of cotton.
With the escalation of the Sino-U.S. trade war, on Jun. 16, 2018, China’s State Council decided to place a 25% tariff on 659 U.S. products worth about USD 50 billion. The decision applied to USD 34 billion of U.S. exports from Jul. 6, 2018, including agricultural products, automobiles and aquatic products, which involved uncombed cotton and cotton linters. The increase in tariff immediately affected the export of U.S. cotton to China.
Since Jun. 2018, Chinese enterprises have significantly reduced U.S. cotton orders, and Brazil has replaced China as the largest destination of U.S. cotton exports. Overall, China imported about 360,000 tons of cotton from the U.S., while the U.S. exported 3.56 million tons of cotton in 2020. China’s cotton imports from the U.S. took up a small proportion of U.S. cotton exports.
Therefore, fewer orders from China had a limited impact on the export of U.S. cotton. However, in 2017, the cotton imported from the U.S. accounted for more than 40% of China’s cotton imports. In this context, the Sino-U.S. war had a great impact on cotton imports in China.
According to CRI, from 2022 to 2026, the growth rate of China’s cotton spinning industry will continue to slow down. However, the domestic demand for cotton textiles will keep rising, and a large number of cotton textiles will be exported as usual because of the price advantage. Therefore, the overall demand for cotton in China is expected to increase gradually from 2022 to 2026.
Restricted by production factors such as land rent and labor costs, cotton output in China can hardly rise and will even fall from 2022 to 2026. Therefore, the import volume of cotton in China will keep rising during this period.
Topics covered:
- Economic and policy environment of China’s cotton imports
- Status and major sources of cotton in China, 2013-2020
- Analysis of China’s major cotton importers
- Key driving forces and market opportunities for China’s cotton imports
- Forecast on key driving forces, challenges and opportunities for China’s cotton import, 2021-2031
- Major participants in China’s cotton import market and their competitive benchmarks
- Forecast on the revenue of China’s cotton import market, 2021-2031
- Strategies adopted by the major market participants for increasing their market share in the industry
- Forecast on the segment to dominate the cotton import market in 2031
- Competitive advantages of the major participants in the cotton import market
- Impact of COVID-19 on China’s cotton imports
- Major restrictions over the growth of China’s cotton imports
- Global Face Masks Market By distribution (online market, malls and superstore, wholesale market); By type (cotton, polyester, plastic and others); By end user (oil and chemical, healthcare industry, mining, textile, etc.) and Region –Analysis of Market Size, Share & Trends for 2016 – 2019 and Forecasts to 2030.
