For China’s textile industry， cotton has always been a problem drawing concern from the whole industrial chain. Nowadays China’s cotton textile enterprises have stepped out of the shadow of “sequela from purchasing and storage” and industrial operation also gradually becomes steady. Even though the internal and external economic environments are still unpredictable and market and cost pressure remains enormous， roller coaster-like fluctuation of cotton price in the previous two years has become the past for good. However， does this mean that cot- ton market has reached an ideal state？
Obviously， there are many just passable obstacles for domestic cotton price to be in line with international price nowadays， like regulation and control of import quotas， variation of State Reserve Cotton， etc. Journalist of this magazine has conducted exclusive interview on Liu Qiannan from light industry department of Galaxy Securities Future to get deep understanding of performance of several major plates of domestic cotton supply market in 2017 as well as the future tendency.
State Reserve Cotton
A unique weapon regulating the market
State Reserve Cotton is a unique product in China. “Reserve releasing” for destocking was continuously implemented in 2017.
Liu Qiannan told the journalist that， “State Reserve Cotton in 2016/17 started being released in March to the end of August， and then it was postponed to end of September， lasting 147 working days. Totally 3，224，000t State Reserve Cotton were dealt， consisting of 1，837，000t Xinjiang cotton and 1，386，000t mainland cotton. 139，600t cotton was dealt in 2011， 1，407，000t in 2012 and 1，677，000t in 2013. Average closing price of Xinjiang cotton basically maintained between RMB 15，000 - 15，500/t while that of mainland cotton maintained between RMB 14，000 - 14，500/ t. In terms of price， price of Xinjiang cotton with relatively good quality among State Reserve Cotton was still lower than that of prompt new cotton in the market. C32S and C40S carded cotton yarns made by Xinjiang cotton seemed okay， and the fabricated cotton yarn had certain advantages in price over low-end yarn in international market， so Xinjiang cotton in State Reserve Cotton won much favor from textile enterprises. Many textile enterprises with abundant funds conducted auctions in final stage of auction for State Reserve Cotton and some textile enterprises reserved cotton until December and even January in the next year”.