China at recent auction on reserve cotton sold 17,500 tonnes of cotton

At the recent auction on reserve cotton initiated by China to fuel domestic mill demand where it sold a total of 17,500 tonnes of cotton on Wednesday. The amount sold represents 97 percent of the total amount of cotton available at Wednesday’s auction, and was sold at an average price of 12,230 yuan ($1,859.57) per tonne, according to the cncotton.com website.

A total of 23,200 tonnes was sold at an auction on Tuesday, more than 99 percent of the cotton available, at an average price of 12,202 yuan per tonne, according to the website.

This month’s auctions follow similar sales in May, when China sold off more cotton in one week than in all of 2015 as the world’s top textile producer was hit by a supply shortage.

Despite this, global cotton prices remain subdued due to healthy US crop yields. Nearly 54 percent of the US crop was in good to excellent condition, weekly US Department of Agriculture data showed earlier this week. Ongoing overall commodity prices, from fuel to industrial raw materials also contribute to the cotton lull.

However, the benchmark cotton future prices have not recovered from steep price falls in 2010/2011 and again in 2014, and they have been trading in a narrow range of 55 to 70 cents per pound over the past two years, down 70 percent since 2010/2011 and almost a third below 2014 peaks.