Official estimates for China's 2009 cotton output ranged from 6.4 million tonnes to 6.7 million tonnes, a more than 10 percent decline from 2008, according to reports released on Wednesday. The agriculture ministry estimated that output in China, the world's largest cotton producer, could fall by 11 percent to 6.7 million tonnes, said an ministry official at a national cotton conference.
His speech was posted on China Cotton Association website (www.china-cotton.org). The projection blamed the decrease on a 10 percent decline in planted acreage even though intensive planting improved yields. The National Bureau of Statistics, meanwhile, said initial figures showed cotton output for the country would be 6.5 million tonnes, of which about 2.55 million tonnes would come from Xinjiang.
The bureau said planted acreage in 2009 decreased by 13.9 percent from last year. Expectations for lower output has prompted the government to raise the import quotas to 1.89 million tonnes for 2010. Chinese authorities often give different cotton output estimates, in part because of inexact forecasts for production in Xinjiang, the largest growing region. Statistics bureau official Zhang Yanhua told the meeting that the bureau would take measures to improve the accuracy of output data from Xinjiang.