Financial Express</a> reported quoting Pradeep Kumar Agarwal, chairman and managing director of CCI.</p><p>Additionally, US, the largest producer of cotton in the world, slipped down as the state of Texas faced a severe drought last year, thus causing cotton prices in India to firm up since December 2020.</p><p>Moreover, the price rise has not translated into an increase in the area in the current season either. Farmers are increasingly shifting from cotton to soybean, with India reporting cotton sowing of 108.93 lakh hectares as of the third week of July, compared to 118.03 lakh hectares during the same time in 2020.</p><p>The Southern India Mills&rsquo; Association (SIMA) had recently expressed its concerns over the rapidly rising cotton prices in the country.</p><p>&ldquo;Such steep increases are a severe blow for the entire cotton textile value chain. Such a rise will lead to higher prices of apparel and textile goods for domestic consumers as well,&rdquo; said SIMA chairman Ashwin Chandran. &ldquo;There is no parity between the current cotton prices and yarn prices. This will in turn force spinning mills to increase yarn prices in the coming period to avoid incurring losses.&rdquo;</p><p>The SIMA chairman had also appealed to the central government to immediately withdraw the 10 per cent import duty on cotton to change the market sentiment and avoid further damage to the cotton textile value chain.</p><p>The cotton Association of India (CAI) had also requested the government to withdraw the customs duty imposed on cotton. There is a shortfall of extra-long staple (ELS) and non ELS contamination-free sustainable cotton due to the imposition of import duty, as India hardly produces these types of cotton.</p><p>&ldquo;If the import duty is not removed, domestic prices will go up further and create more hardship to the domestic textile sector viz. spinning, weaving and garment industry,&rdquo; CAI president Atul S Ganatra had said in a recent letter addressed to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.</p><p>Thus, the high demand, depleting stocks as well as the import duty levied in the last budget have collectively caused cotton prices to rise since the beginning of this year.</p> <p class="text-right">Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)</p> </span> <div style="display:none;" id="shortdesc">Strong demand from cotton market and depleting stocks in addition to 10 per cent import duty levied on cotton have collectively caused cotton prices in India to soar. Cotton price witnessed a hike of ₹3,800 per candy in a span of 15 days in July. The steep increase in prices has destabilised the industry and made Indian exporters uncompetitive.</div> <div class="col-md-12"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-md-6 text-left"> <div class="row"> <a href=https://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/cotton-news/'/news/textile-news/india/' class="more-category-link">More Textiles News - India...</a> </div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-right pagination-txt pull-right"> <div class="row"> <ul class="pagination pagination-lg pull-right"> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> " />