The Global Market Is Optimistic About China's Cotton Industry: Reform Is Effective And Quality Is Improving.

"From the perspective of cotton industry, the regulation and transparency of China's cotton macro-control policies in recent years has stabilized market expectations and achieved remarkable results in Xinjiang's cotton target price reform." At the 2019 China International Cotton Conference held recently, Luo Lin, deputy director of the China Council of supply and Marketing Cooperative Council, said that at present, China's cotton inventory was completed ahead of schedule. Cotton production has experienced steady decline, and has gradually stabilized, and the quality of cotton has been continuously improved, and the overall operation of the textile industry has remained stable.

Chinese market affects the world

"In recent years, the degree of mechanization of cotton has been greatly improved, and the speed of planting concentration is very fast." Ke Bingsheng, director of the rural professional technology association of China, said that with the continuous promotion of mechanized planting of cotton, the cotton area in Xinjiang expanded rapidly, and the cotton planting area in the eastern part of Bohai province and the traditional cotton growing provinces in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River decreased.

From the data point of view, it also reflects the trend of "westward migration" of cotton. In 2018, China Cotton Association statistics cotton production is 6 million 110 thousand tons, a slight increase in the same proportion, of which Xinjiang cotton output has reached a record high of 5 million 110 thousand tons, an increase of 11.9% over 2017, accounting for 84% of the country, representing an increase of 9.8 percentage points over the same period last year.

Along with the upgrading of mechanization and centralization, the output and quality of cotton industry in China have been improved. The Chinese cotton market is becoming more and more important to the world market. Dai Gongxing, President of the China Cotton Association, said that in the past 5 years, China has implemented a series of reform measures including Xinjiang cotton target price, cotton reserve rotation policy, and the reform of the quota system for the import of cotton. According to the China Cotton Association statistics, from 2014 to 2018, the average cotton planting area in China was 50 million 20 thousand mu, with an average output of 5 million 680 thousand tons, accounting for 23% of the world's output. This year, the area of cotton planting is 48 million 160 thousand mu, and it remains stable.

On the market side, in recent years, China's cotton industry regulation and control policy has been gradually institutionalized and predictable. The government's regulation of the market has paid more attention to accuracy and timeliness. The price fluctuation in the cotton market has been mild, and there has been no ups and downs. China's position in the world's cotton production, consumption and trade is very important. For the market, the stability of domestic cotton market also determines the stability of the global market.

Dai pointed out that in terms of supply and demand, the main contradiction in the world market in the last few years was excessive inventory. In recent years, China has continuously put a large amount of reserve cotton into the market, which has effectively promoted the balance of the global cotton market. "As a big country in the world's cotton textile industry, the Chinese market is affecting the world, and the global market is still optimistic about China."

Support for domestic demand

Influenced by uncertainties such as international economic and trade frictions and the transformation and upgrading of China's textile industry, China's textile and garment retail sales and export volume slowed down year-on-year in the first few months of this year. Orders for Southeast Asian countries and other countries increased, and there were some pessimism in the industry. In this regard, Dai Gong Xing said that China is both a "world factory" and "a world market". The domestic demand market is huge, and the trend of consumption upgrading is obvious. From 2012 to 2018, the retail sales of clothing, shoes and hats and needles and textiles in China have maintained a steady growth trend, reaching 15231 billion yuan in 2018. There is no doubt that China will remain the world's largest consumer market for textiles and clothing. In the past two years, the Chinese government has vigorously promoted the reform of tax cut and fee reduction, encouraged innovation and optimized the business environment, and promulgated a series of policies and measures that are conducive to the long-term development of the industry, thus forming a strong support for the domestic demand market.

"Import data also reflect the capacity of domestic demand." Gao Fang, executive director of the Department of agricultural supply and marketing, head of cotton and hemp Bureau and executive vice president of China Cotton Association, said that in the past 15 years, the amount of cotton actually imported per year has far exceeded the quota of WTO.

"According to the latest projections of the US Department of agriculture, China's cotton consumption accounts for 33% of the world's total and ranks first in the world." Gao Fang said.

Innovation, change and open win win

"The real competitors in the cotton industry are ourselves." Gao Fang said that cotton is a natural fiber, chemical fiber as a rival of cotton, has developed rapidly in the field of super Imitation cotton polyester fiber, and there are many patents in China. It not only imitated the advantages of moisture absorption and softness of cotton, but also improved some shortcomings of cotton, such as lighter, sweating, anti ultraviolet and so on. Therefore, the cotton industry should not only rely on the advantages of natural fibers, but also need to make greater breakthroughs.

"Therefore, China's cotton industry demands new changes and enhance its ability to deal with risks." Dai Gongxing believes that, first of all, in agricultural production, the situation of China's "big power small farmers" will exist for a long time. Cotton production is also the case. Most of them are small farmers, with small scale and poor risk tolerance. Therefore, we should make full use of the emerging technologies such as the Internet and big data to improve the management level of production and sales volume. For example, now cotton growers have been able to buy agricultural materials and insurance through mobile phone APP, join cooperatives and understand the market situation.

Secondly, in the field of circulation, traditional traders are also accelerating the transformation to modern integrated service traders, providing personalized and precise services for textile enterprises through innovative trading mode. At present, the new technological revolution has promoted the rise of the shared economy. By sharing resources such as information, logistics and trading platform, the joint cooperation between the circulation enterprises and the upstream and downstream businesses of the circulation enterprises can be strengthened. This will help to promote the efficiency of resource allocation, reduce the transaction costs of the industrial chain, and create more new models and new formats.

Finally, the upgrading of consumption and technological progress of textile industry also urgently need the industry to speed up the transformation of new and old development kinetic energy, constantly introduce new products and services, meet people's increasingly personalized and diversified needs, and push the industry from capital intensive to knowledge and technology intensive.

"During the past 40 years, China's cotton output, import volume and demand increased substantially. It can be said that the status of China's cotton and textile giants benefit from the development of economic globalization. Dai said that under the background of uncertain external environment, China's cotton industry should take the initiative to release the positive effect of economic globalization.

Dai urged that China's cotton industry and textile industry should take an active part in the global value chain remodeling in the process of global layout, integrate the advanced concepts of green development and sustainable development, and enhance the resource control ability of raw materials, brands and channels, at the same time, promote the economic and social development of the country and region, create more opportunities for development and space for partners, and promote the development of the cotton industry chain to a more equitable, more efficient and higher level direction.