The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) has urged the Union Textile Minister, Smriti Irani to intervene in the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) cotton trading policies.
While substantiating on the same, Ashwin Chandran, Chairman, SIMA directed CCI to avoid holding the cotton and sell the cotton at market price on a regular basis to arrest price escalation.
He called on the Minister to instruct CCI to sell the cotton at market price so that the spinning mills could procure the cotton at a competitive price.
Further, the SIMA chief said that mills are not able to source cotton from CCI as the price quoted by CCI is exorbitantly high when compared to the market price quoting Rs. 46,000 as the base price as against the market price of Rs. 40,000 per candy of 355 kg.
Ashwin pointed out that industry-friendly cotton trading policy by CCI would not only facilitate to mitigate the current challenges, but also would enable the industry to grab the market opportunities in the aftermath of US-China holding talks to end the trade war shortly.
He added that as China-US trade war is likely to end and also China had depleted its cotton reserves significantly during the last few years, China has geared up to import huge volume of cotton from USA and India (largest cotton producing countries in the world).
Ashwin also said that as per the market information, over 20 lakh bales of cotton have already been exported from the current cotton crop and export might reach the level of 60 lakh bales as against 50 lakh bales estimated by CAB. If the same trend persists, it may result in panic situation in the Indian cotton market.
