Cotton output to rise by 8.11% to 373 lakh bales in 2017-18 season: CITI

Cotton production is estimated to grow by 8.11 per cent to 373 lakh bales in 2017-18 season ending September over the previous year, the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) said today.

The production is projected to expand on account of 13 per cent increase in cotton crop area to 122.59 lakh hectares from from 108.45 lakh hectares, it said.

"The estimated balance-sheet for 2017-18 shows production as 373 lakh bales (of 170kg each), imports at 15 lakh bales and exports at 70 lakh bales. Further consumption is estimated to be 316 lakh bales (including non mill consumption of 19 lakh bales) against 306 lakh bales in 2016-17," CITI Chairman Sanjay K Jain said.

High prices of cotton domestically and internationally would further force the consumption to either remain stagnant or slightly at the lower side, he opined. Hence, consumption figures should not exceed beyond 316 lakh bales, including the non-mill consumption of 19 lakh bales.

"Even the figure of 316 lakh bales is already higher than the estimate of cotton consumption of 309 lakh bales based upon the consumption of first seven months for the cotton season 2017-18 as reported by the Textile Commissioner," CITI said.

"The consumption of last season 2016-17 was 306 lakh bales (including the non-mill consumption of 17.50 lakh bales)," it added.

The closing stock of cotton for 2017-18 would be around 49.81 lakh bales which is quite sufficient for the textile sector to smoothly run their units throughout the year, the body said.

The Cotton Association of India (CAI) earlier this week increased its May estimate of the cotton crop production by 5 lakh bales to 365 lakh bales for 2017-18 season (October to September).