Bangladesh’s cotton import to drop: USDA

Bangladesh's cotton import may drop to 8 million bales in marketing year 2022-23 which began in August, said the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) at the end of last week. 

This will be resulting from high international raw cotton prices, reduced garment production due to a domestic power shortage and a slowdown in the world economy, it said.

The latest projection is about 10 per cent below its previous one of April this year.

Bangladesh is the world's second largest garment exporter and is highly dependent on the imports to make yarn.

In its report on cotton and products with regard to Bangladesh, the US agency said Bangladesh's domestic raw cotton use was likely to drop 11 per cent to 8.3 million bales in marketing year 2022-23.

Bangladesh began receiving more garment purchase orders as many brands shifted from competitor countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia in the beginning of 2021, following the Covid-19 lockdowns, it said.

"The higher volumes of RMG exports continued until the middle of CY (calendar year) 2022, with the Russia-Ukraine war and ongoing economic turmoil negatively affecting the RMG sector," it said.

Garment purchase orders slumped approximately 20 per cent to 30 per cent in June and July this year, it added.

"Many US and European brands also deferred their shipments," said the USDA report.

Bangladesh imported 8.52 million bales in the previous marketing year, said the agency.

It said Bangladesh's yarn and fabric consumption would be 1.8 million tonnes and 6 billion metres, around 10 per cent and 3.5 per cent higher respectively from that in the previous year.

In marketing year 2021-22 Bangladesh's domestic raw cotton consumption was estimated at 8.8 million bales, according to the USDA.

The report said the textiles industry was composed of yarn, fabric, and dyeing-printing-finishing mills and they have about 15 million bales of cotton consumption capacity.

Some 80 per cent of the produced yarn is purely cotton while the remaining 20 per cent is mixed yarn from cotton and artificial fibres.

The report said Bangladesh has been showing a steady increase in cotton imports since marketing year 2014-15, with a dip in marketing year 2019-20 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

And India is the major supplier of the raw material and the neighbouring country accounted for 24 per cent of the cotton import market share, it said.

They were followed by Benin (16 per cent), Brazil (14 per cent), Burkina Faso (10 per cent), and the US (8 per cent) as of October in calendar year 2022, it added.

As of October in this calendar year, raw cotton imports amounted to 7.1 million bales, down 5 per cent year-on-year from that a year ago, according to the USDA's data.