In 2023, the decline in China's cotton planting area is expected to expand

Since April, southern Xinjiang has experienced frequent windy and dusty weather, and northern Xinjiang has repeatedly encountered rainfall and cooling weather, resulting in a delay of about 10 days in the progress of cotton planting in Xinjiang compared with the previous year. At present, although the sowing progress in southern Xinjiang is faster than that in northern Xinjiang, some early-sowed cotton fields have emerged, but some areas need to be remedied and re-sowed due to soil compaction, mulch film and damage to some seedlings. Combined with the on-the-spot visits of China Cotton Network reporters and the preliminary results of the National Cotton Market Monitoring System's "National Cotton Planting Area Basic Situation Survey", the national cotton planting area is expected to decrease by 10.3% in 2023, which is lower than the intended cotton planting area survey released in March. The results further expanded by 5.4 percentage points.

In this context, considering that some processing enterprises in Xinjiang have updated their equipment this year and their production efficiency has improved, the probability of cotton harvesting in Xinjiang is expected to increase in the new year. Enterprises are reminded to guard against such risks carefully.

Based on relevant special surveys and analysis of the domestic and foreign economic environment and market conditions, the current National Cotton Market Monitoring System's forecast for China's cotton production, sales and inventory in 2022 remains unchanged from last month. At the same time, the first release of the forecast for China's cotton production, sales and inventory in 2023 is as follows:

In 2023, China's cotton initial inventory was 6.182 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 894,000 tons, an increase of 16.91%. %; cotton consumption was 7.8 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 250,000 tons, an increase of 3.31%; the ending inventory consumption ratio was 79.69%, a decrease of 1.92 percentage points from the previous year.

To sum up, according to the forecast of the United States Department of Agriculture, there may be a gap between global cotton production and demand in the new year, which is in stark contrast to the situation that this year's output exceeds demand. It is expected that the overall cotton price in the new year will be higher than this year. At present, cotton planting in the northern hemisphere is coming to an end, and cotton will enter a critical growth period. Weather changes are still one of the main factors affecting the direction of cotton prices. At the same time, the uncertainty faced by the global economy continues unabated, and the outlook for cotton consumption is not optimistic.

Generally speaking, cotton prices may fluctuate sharply due to the above factors.