The government of India will consider a ban on cotton exports if the surplus the country currently enjoys diminishes following an unseasonably dry monsoon season. After meeting with a contingent from the cotton industry on Thursday, commerce minister Anand Sharma believed that a cotton shortfall could be in the future; this despite estimates by the Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) on November 13, and the textiles minister Dayanidhi Maran’s statement on Wednesday that a ban would not be imposed as the surplus would continue.
“If there is no exportable surplus, we will not allow those exports,” Sharma said. When the CAB last convened, the board announced that 373.5 lakh bales of cotton would be produced during the current cotton year, which stretches from October through September. The supply would be 68.5 lakh bales greater than the 305 lakh bale demand in India during that same period. Similarly, sources in the textiles ministry told The Indian Express that the current demand of 250 lakh bales is being met by the production of 295 lakh bales domestically and the import of six to seven lakh bales of cotton.
However, Sharma watered the industry’s seed of doubt by telling reporters that the 305 lakh bale estimate may actually end up closer to 280 lakh bales. “Globally, there has been a decline in production - there may be a marginal shortfall in production in our country too,” he said on the heels of the World Trade Organisation’s summit in Geneva, where the focus of conversation between 143 trade ministers will be on improving the WTO’s functionality and pursuing a conclusion to the Doha Round.
A common theme at such summits has been the rejection of protectionist economic strategies on the part of certain countries viewed as being self-indulgent rather than playing in the interest of the global economy. “As I have said, we will ensure that the demands and needs of the industry here are met first.”
Source : indianexpress.com