By Qin Zhongchun, Li Xiang & Ouyang Xiazi, Research Team on “ Agricultural Strategic Adjustment in the Course of High-Level Opening-up”, Research Department of Rural Economy, DRC

Research Report, No. 69, 2020 (Total 5813) 2020-4-1

Abstract: Since China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, great changes have taken place in the country’s cotton industry for the nearly two decades in the past. China’s textile and apparel exports have soared with constant increases in both domestic and external demands. Its cotton output had grown remarkably before starting to fall. Currently the production in Xinjiang keeps growing, while those along the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins have shrunk, featuring a shifted supply pattern nationwide. Meanwhile, the country’s production is experiencing an increasing impact from imported cotton. Cotton price in China has undergone several roller-coaster cycles with big ups and downs, currently staying at a bottom level. Its cotton industry is being upgraded with both the upstream and downstream links in the industrial chain undergoing continuous adjustment. In the future, China’s cotton industry will face even more changes as it opens wider to the outside world while being exposed to multiple contributory factors.

Key words: cotton demand, cotton supply, cotton price, cotton supply chain, WTO