Global Cotton Market Supply And Demand Turn Loose International Cotton Prices Still Have Downward Pressure

The National Development and Reform Commission has announced that it will issue a sliding tax quota for 2024 in the near future, with a total amount of 200000 tons, all of which are non-state trade quotas, and are limited to be used for processing trade imports.

From the content of the announcement, the specific application conditions of enterprises have not been significantly adjusted. 200000 tons is the minimum quantity since 2018, which is also more consistent with the early market expectation on the distribution of quotas, and is expected to have limited impact on the domestic cotton price.

The picking progress in Brazil's main cotton producing areas continued to advance. According to the data from the Institute of Agricultural Economics of Mato Grosso State (IMEA), as of July 26, the picking progress of new cotton in this state was 24%, an increase of nearly 11 percentage points over the previous week, basically the same as the same period last year, but slightly lower than the progress in 2022 (the cotton planting area in this year was more than 20% lower than the current).

Due to the rainfall in the main production area of American cotton, the drought has eased, the excellent rate of American cotton has significantly increased month on month, and the export data of American cotton has set a new annual low. The price of American cotton has continued to fall, falling below the key support of 70 cents/pound. At present, the production increase of American cotton and Brazilian cotton is expected to be strong in the new year. The global cotton production will increase significantly in 2024/25, the consumption growth is expected to be less than the output growth, and the ending inventory will accumulate slightly.

In the current situation of limited demand support, the global cotton market has turned to loose supply and demand, and the international cotton price still has downward pressure. At home, affected by the sharp drop of American cotton and the strong expectation of high yield in the upstream, Zheng cotton once fell below 14000 yuan/ton. Although it rebounded after oversold, the overall upward drive was insufficient. On the supply side, the domestic commercial inventory continued to go out of stock, but it was still higher than the same period last year. Since this year, China's cotton imports have increased significantly year on year, and the current domestic cotton resources are relatively abundant.

The decrease of cotton planting area in the new year is not obvious, and the early weather changes have not had a significant impact on the growth of new cotton. It is expected that the unit yield will generally increase, and the overall yield may be basically the same as last year. On the demand side, the margin of downstream demand has improved in the last two weeks, the cotton mills' replenishment has increased, and the inventory of finished cotton yarn and grey cloth has been slightly removed from the stock. Pay attention to the downstream stock in August and the orders in the peak season.