China May Open Up to More Foreign Cotton After Xinjiang Ban
A farmer harvests cotton in Hami, Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. Getty Images.
China looks likely to allow more cotton imports than usual this year after a US ban on fiber from Xinjiang spurred some Western retailers to avoid material produced from the controversial region.
Beijing may issue another batch of import quotas soon to meet rising global demand for textiles after awarding 700,000 tons last month, said Xu Yaguang, an analyst at Huatai Futures. China issued just 400,000 tons of quotas in 2020.
Washington banned entry of all products using cotton from Xinjiang early this year over China’s alleged ill-treatment of its ethnic Uyghur Muslim minority. Hennes & Mauritz AB — better known as retail brand H&M — also refused to use cotton from the region, which accounts for around 80 percent of Chinese output and a fifth of the world’s supply of the fibre.
The Biden administration is increasing pressure on China over Xinjiang, where advocacy groups and a panel of United Nations experts say Uighurs have been subjected to mass arbitrary detention and forced to work against their will. The US is poised to bar some solar products made in the region, according to several people familiar with the matter.
The potential opening up to more cotton imports comes as the global recovery gains traction, boosting demand for apparel. International supply has also been hit by cooler-than-normal weather in Xinjiang and droughts in other top growers Brazil and India. Cotton futures have risen by 44 percent over the past year.
