Cotton prices have hit a 10-month low as expectations that China is gearing up to release a massive stockpile weigh on the market.
Beijing is expected by the end of the year to start selling bloated cotton reserves that have kept domestic and international prices artificially high, stimulated planting of cotton internationally and starved Chinese textile mills of raw material.
China’s state reserves bureau is sitting on a stockpile estimated by the US Department of Agriculture this summer at 10m tonnes, or 60 per cent of world stocks, which it bought at relatively high prices. So far this year, it has bought 1.08m tonnes of cotton as of the end of October.