Govt Extends Deadline for Cotton Exporters.

The government has finally decided to give more time to cotton exporters who were not able to meet the earlier deadline of December 15, 2010 and ship the volume of cotton they had registered with the Textile Commissioners Office.

The government had permitted 5.5 million bales (1 bale = 170 kg) for export and fixed December 15 as deadline for completing shipments. However as on that date, cotton exporters were able to ship only 3.02 million bales.

Vide a notification issued on December 16, Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), said that, it will henceforth register, inspect and certify all future raw cotton exports from India. In August, DGFT had transferred these powers to the Textile Commissioners Office.

Experts whom fibre2fashion spoke to, are of the opinion that the government has given more time to exporters to calm down the markets as raw cotton prices of cotton had shot up by 12 percent to Rs 42500 / candy (1 candy = 355 kg) after DGFT issued the notification.

According to the Cotton Association of India which released its news estimates on December 18, the cotton crop is expected to be 34.75 million bales. This estimate is less than the October estimate of 35.7 million bales.

The unseasonable rains in the cotton growing zones in India during November, particularly floods in Andhra Pradesh have resulted in lowering the crop estimate. The Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) had estimated cotton output in India at 32.5 million bales in October, but is yet to announce the new estimates.

Source : fibre2fashion.com