Cotton Consumption for Textile Industry in Xinjiang on a Significant Rise

Xinjiang textile and apparel industry develops well over the past years, with the background of China’s “Belt and Road” strategy. The development of cotton textile industry, from upstream cotton production and processing, to the downstream spinning, weaving and apparel industry, gets good momentum. With the expanding textile scale, the consumption for cotton in Xinjiang is on the rise.

Currently, spinning capacity in Xinjiang is estimated at 13.60 million spindles, and tends to increase to 20.00 million spindles by 2020. By end 2017, the capacity is supposed to reach 17-18 million spindles and may reach 20 million spindles in the first half year of 2018. By then, the cotton consumption will reach 1.50 million tons per year.

The development of textile industry in Xinjiang is benefited from the its cotton feedstock advantage and government’s policy support. The subsidy on electricity, labor training, freight costs, tax and land is obvious, leading to better spinning profits than in inland.

With the higher cotton consumption, the quantity of cotton transported from Xinjiang to inland has been decreasing. According to incomplete statistics, the quantity of Xinjiang cotton from Xinjiang to inland exceeded 3.00 million tons in 2015/16 season and according to the cotton yarn output, the quantity may decrease much in 2016/17 season.