Chinese textile producers are sounding the alarm over a growing shortage of cotton that threatens to slow down their expansion at home and abroad, state media said yesterday.
Forecasts show that the cotton shortfall will reach 4 million tonnes this year, the Xinhua news agency reported, without giving a source.
The cotton deficit has come about as a result of falling supply and rapidly rising demand, according to the agency.
Statistics with the China Textile Association suggested that China's cotton growing area measured 5.12 million hectares last year, down 10 percent from the previous year.
Cotton is the second most important cash crop in China after oil seeds and the country is the world's biggest producer, but local farmers are being squeezed by foreign competition.
Development and relief group Oxfam said in December an influx of cheap subsidized cotton from the US had impeded the growth of the cotton industry in China.
China imported 2.57 million tonnes of cotton last year, 35 percent more than a year earlier, according to earlier figures from the China Cotton Association.
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