At the China’s state cotton auction, all the cotton that was made available was sold out in an indicator of strong demand for the material. China sold 21,700 tonnes of cotton at an auction of state reserves on Tuesday, pushing the total amount sold in its latest rounds of auction now exceeding 1 million tonnes, far more than China sold all of last year.

According to industry analysts it indicates a shortage of high grade cotton in China’s textile sector.

The state reserve cotton was sold at an average price of 12,868 yuan ($1,937.54) per tonne, up from a price of 12,230 yuan at an auction last week, according to information published late on Tuesday on the China cotton industry website cncotton.com.

Despite this, global cotton prices remain subdued due to healthy US crop yields. Benchmark cotton future prices last settled at 64.66 cents per pound and have not recovered from steep price falls in 2010/2011 and again in 2014.