Shandong Province: The first case of adulteration of imported cotton was seized

Due to the reduction in domestic cotton production in 2010, many cotton spinning companies chose to import cotton from abroad. However, after a textile company in Texas recently imported 150 tons of cotton from India, the inspection and quarantine department found that more than 40% of the waste cotton could not be used normally.

In October 2010, a textile company in Texas signed a 150-ton cotton import contract with a company in India. When the December cotton arrived in Texas, staff of the entry-exit inspection and quarantine department discovered during the routine inspection that there were cotton fibers in the imported cotton that were too short and the appearance was abnormal. The staff then brought the samples back to the laboratory for testing. Test results show that this batch of cotton is heavily doped with waste cotton (commonly known as waste).

Texas inspection and quarantine authorities immediately sealed the shipment (a total of six containers, 900 bales of cotton) on the site and reported it to the Shandong Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau. The provincial bureau dispatched a team of experts to rush to Texas for field inspection. Zhou Baochang, an expert, said: “After investigation, it was found that the amount of waste cotton blended in this batch of cotton accounted for more than 40% of the total number of packages, and all cotton could not be used for normal production and utilization. This time the cotton was doped and faked was first discovered in Shandong Province. The degree of doping has been rare over the years."

“This time involved a contract amount of USD 499,700, equivalent to more than RMB 330 million.” said Li Li, deputy director of the Texas Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, who transports cotton from India to China and is subject to deviations from climate and inspections. Factors such as the occurrence of a reasonable range of grade and weight deviations are more normal. However, the problem discovered this time was that man-made cotton was blended with waste cotton. This is a typical case of shoddy and suspected fraud.

It is understood that cotton, as a country's bulk sensitive imported goods, is a mandatory inspection and quarantine department must compulsory inspection of goods. Waste cotton, which belongs to the waste that the state explicitly restricts imports, does not have normal use value. If it needs to be imported, it must be reported to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the State Environmental Protection Administration for approval.