BEIJING, Aug 4: Pakistan enjoys rich potential to further enhance export of cotton and textile products to China. At present, nearly 80 per cent of country’s total export to China comprised cotton yarn and cotton fabric, said a Chinese official Shi Wei.

He told APP in an interview here on Monday that China needs to import at least 600,000 tons of cotton this year to meet rising domestic market demand.

Shi Wei, director of All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives said the country’s cotton production would not exceed 6 million tons this year.

Statistics released by the State Statistics Bureau in late June showed that China’s cotton output in 2003 was expected to reach 5.65 million tons.

However, cotton consumption by textile mills alone is estimated at around 6.3 million tons. If combined with cotton consumption for other purposes, the figure will reach 6.6 million tons.

But all these people in the government and in business agree that China was stigmatized by the Western countries and there is a possibility that a small part of China’s share may have been diverted towards Pakistan.

Pakistan was doing very well in those items which had been taken out of textile export quota regime. He expects close collaboration with China for at least three years after the year 2005 when Pakistan would be out of quota regime and China would remain within this fold till 2008.

China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has meant higher import quotas for foreign farmers, but this development may not necessarily bring them export volumes to match.

“China’s agricultural imports will continue to gradually grow for a long time, but the amount has hardly yet reached the targets set by foreign farmers and farming enterprises,” said Lu Feng, an agricultural economist with Peking University.

The most recent commodity to disappoint foreign farmers was cotton.

According to the sources, in the first 11 months of this year, China imported 134,000 tons of cotton, up 257.6 per cent over the same period of last year. About 50 per cent of those imports came from the United States.

China promised to increase its annual import quota for cotton to 818,500 tons after its entry into the global trade body. Tariffs for the imports within the quota were to be only 1 per cent.

The quota was based on the average level of China’s cotton imports between 1996 and 1998. “Imports between 1996 and 1998 were abnormally high because the domestic market was distorted, and the quota based on import volume in that period can hardly be used up by Chinese cotton importers,” Lu told Business Weekly.

In 1996, when China’s cotton output had suffered great losses due to bad weather, the country dramatically increased its imports. According to Lu, due to the delayed reaction of policymakers in 1997 and 1998, the abnormally high imports remained despite China’s ample cotton harvests in those years.—APP