Cotton production to touch 373L bales

Coimbatore: The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) has estimated cotton production for the 2017-18 season (October-September) at 373 lakh bales (a bale is 170kg), an 8.11% growth compared to the previous season. Cotton production has increased due to the rise in area under cultivation by almost 13%, from 108.45 lakh hectares to 122.59 lakh hectares.
While cotton exports have been pegged at 70 lakh bales for the 2017-18 season, domestic consumption has been estimated at 316 lakh bales compared to 306 lakh bales in the 2016-17 season. “Thus, the closing stock will be around 49.81 lakh bales, which is quite sufficient for the textile sector to smoothly run their units throughout the year,” said Sanjay K Jain, chairman, CITI. TNN