U.S. cotton forecasts continue to tighten around the world

On March 7, the United States Fort Stone Company issued a forward-looking forecast for US cotton supply and demand for the USDA monthly report in March, and the relevant data has not been adjusted to a large extent. The details are as follows:

Output: As the ginning and grading work has been completed, the US cotton production is expected to remain at 3.98 million tons.

Consumption: According to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau in January, this year's US domestic cotton consumption should be around 827,000 tons. Therefore, USDA's forecast is expected to increase slightly to 806,000 tons.

Export volume: US cotton exports will increase to 3.462 million tons this year. Although the phenomenon of breach of contract has increased, due to the recent acceleration of shipments, the shipment volume of the US Cotton Week has continued to exceed 87,000 tons in the past six weeks, so the final export volume is expected to exceed the previous forecast.

Ending stocks: Due to the increase in demand due to basically unchanged supply, US cotton ending stocks may be lowered to 359,000 tons, and the stock consumption ratio will drop to 8.4%, or the lowest level in half a century.

At present, the focus of industry attention is on the global cotton production and spring planting area in the northern hemisphere. Recently, the Indian Cotton Advisory Committee lowered its forecast for cotton production this year by 280,000 tons. At the same time, China’s National Cotton Market Monitoring System (NCMMS) lowered the cotton production forecast by about 10,000 tons in February; in addition, the weather affected Australian cotton. Production may also be reduced by 5-7%. All indications indicate that the global cotton supply is still in short supply. The USDA is likely to reduce the previous 25,500,000 tons of global production forecast by 218,000 tons in the near future. It is expected that the Khmer price will continue until the end of this year.