By Bloomberg News
Global cotton production may exceed consumption for a fifth marketing season in the year through July 2010 as a projected recovery in demand fails to make up for a decline a year ago, Cotlook Ltd. said.
“The difference between our production and consumption forecasts for 2009-10 portends” a small increase in stocks, Ray Butler, managing director of the research group, said in a prepared speech note to be presented at the China International Cotton Conference in Nanjing today.
Consumption may rise 3 percent in the marketing year through July 2010 from a year earlier on the expectation of a recovering world economy, Butler said without given a projected consumption quantity. Still, the volume will be 3 million tons less than a peak level in 2006-07 marketing year, he said.
Production may fall “marginally” next marketing year from 2008-09 to 23.2 million tons, while planting may drop 4 percent, Butler said. Consumption in the 2008-09 marketing year declined an “unprecedented” 13 percent from a year earlier, he said.
Still, cotton prices have risen this year while U.S. exports gained market share after other governments stockpiled some of the supply, Butler said in the note.