AHMEDABAD, Nov 21: Made-in-China apparel sold in some of the biggest retail chains in the US, in the summer of 2007, may have their thread running to Gujarat. Cotton farmers from the state are preparing themselves to enter the dragon land. Both the US and China haven’t had a very good cotton crop this season creating a demand pull from China. Local traders feel that exports will fetch handsome returns - nothing less than 100 per cent.

As China prepares itself to become the leading textile exporter to US and Europe, it is expected to face a shortage of an estimated 15 million bales of cotton. Gujarat seems to be ideally placed to partially fulfil this shortage, thanks to an extremely good monsoon and extensive use of Bt-cotton seeds this year.

“The cotton price in the exports market today is lucrative, owing to higher demand from buyers especially in China. What’s more, Gujarat has the most consistent quality of the crop which is required for exports,” a cotton trader in Saurashtra told ET.

The international price of good quality cotton is averaging at about Rs50 a kg against the domestic rates of about Rs20 a kg or even less.

According to an estimate, farmers here could export as much as 2.5 million bales. This will be about 28 per cent of the total estimated production in the state at about 9 million bales for 2005-06. Good monsoon this year and an extensive use of Bt-cotton ensured a very high productivity which is expected to be over 765 kg per hectare.

This is over 17 per cent more than the per hectare yield last year which was 653 kg per hectare. This is also the highest per hectare yield figure for any state in the country. The national average too has improved to about 450 kg per hectare.

As a result, despite an insignificant change in the total area under cotton cultivation in Gujarat this year the production is set to grow over 22 per cent. The total area remain stagnant at 2 million hectares compared to a little over 1.9 million hectares last year.—By arrangement with the Times of India