Now the state wants the Centre to prevent imports. For the last two years we are having a bumper crop. But cotton imports instead of going down have actually gone up, said the chief minister. During the last two years, cotton imports have gone up from 433,000 bales to 2.2 million bales. Though, the Cotton Advisory Board has estimated actual cotton imports during the current season at 1.6 million bales, contracting for imports is expected to reach a new high of 2.5 million bales, an official from the state s cotton marketing federation said.
China is the world s major producer of cotton.
The area under cotton cultivation in China has gone up. China is expected to harvest 4.7 million tonnes of cotton in 2001-02, compared to 4.4 million tonnes in the last year, said the marketing federation official. However, despite these huge losses the state has no plans to discontinue the monopoly cotton procurement scheme. The Centre has recently extended the scheme for five years. Last year the state had to dip into its contingency funds to keep the cotton scheme going.