NEW DELHI: The textile industry has expressed concern over the steep hike in cotton prices in the country and called for suspension of exports to ensure availability and check prices. The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) has complained that ‘speculation’ by a few large international cotton traders was leading to a substantial hike in cotton prices in the Indian market.
In spite of a significant increase in arrival of cotton in the market during the last couple of weeks, cotton prices for standard varieties has already crossed Rs 25000 a candy on spot basis and the trend of price increase still continues, Mr Shishir Jaipuria, chairman CITI said.
He called for an immediate suspension of cotton exports up to March 2010 to ensure that adequate quantity of cotton was available to the textile industry at competitive prices.
The South India Mills Association (SIMA) has made a similar appeal to the Centre to immediately ban registration of cotton for export. SIMA Chairman J Thulasidaran said the monsoon failure and floods in a few cotton growing states have considerably affected cotton production and actual production might be only around 260 lakh bales against 290 lakh produced during the last year.
Mr Thulasidaran cautioned that if quality cotton were allowed for export, the domestic industry would end up with all sub-standard and inferior quality cotton. It would be compelled to pay the price of good quality cotton and also depend on imported cotton to meet customer needs, he added.
Stating that cotton prices would come down by at least Rs 1,000-1,500 per candy during October-November compared to September, Mr Thulasidaran said during the current season, prices have already gone up by almost Rs 2,000 per candy when compared to September prices.
The prices of standard varieties like Shankar-6 have already exceeded Rs 25,000 per candy as against Rs 22,600 prevailing in September, he said.
Source : The Economic Times