Fall in Turkish cotton crop to boost import demand

The Turkish cotton to see lower returns compared to other crops such as corn in cotton growing regions seen, the fall in production was the result of lower planting, at 370,000 hectares, down from 430,000 hectares in the previous season according to the Ankara bureau.

The government recently announced that the production bonus paid to farmers was to be raised to 0.65 lira per kilogramme of seed cotton, up from last season’s bonus of 0.55 lira. Seed cotton is the unprocessed crop from which cotton fibre is ginned.

But the Ankara bureau said that the increase in price support this season was “late to be announced, and hence had a limited effect on farmers’ planting decisions. Rains also had adverse effects during the picking season, mainly lowering quality.

According to the US Department of Agriculture, cotton crop will fall 17% this season which will help boost import demand, despite stagnant local consumption from the world’s second largest cotton buyer, in the face of an ongoing anti-dumping investigation against US exports.

The USDA’s Ankara bureau forecast Turkish cotton production to fall to 2.66m bales, or 580,000 tonnes, in the year from August 2015, down 17% on the previous season. This compares to the official USDA forecast of 2.80m bales in 2015-16.

Turkish cotton imports were seen at 4.016m bales, up from the 3.800m bales previously forecast by the USDA. This is up 9% from 3.675m bales in the previous season. And imports from the US were seen at 1.720m bales, up from 1.554m bales in the previous season.

The rise in imports from the US comes despite uncertainties about an ongoing antidumping investigation being carried out by the Turkish government, which was instituted in October last year.

There have been fears that the investigation may impose retroactive duties on importers of US product.

According to the Ankara bureau, the Turkish textile industry is hoping the investigation will be finalized without any antidumping duties, claiming that such a move will make Turkish textile exports more expensive and will cause Turkish products to lose market share in international markets.