China cotton imports: imports were 27.4kt in Jun, 2025, to hit 20-year new low again, down 127.9kt from the same period of last year and down 7.1kt from May, 2025. In the first half year of 2025, imports totaled 460kt, down 74.4% or 1.334 million tons year on year, and from Sep 2024 to Jun 2025, imports totaled 927.2kt, down 68% or 1.96 million tons year on year.
The table above lists the primary sources of China's cotton imports, ranked by volume in descending order. In Jun 2025, China imported 27.4kt of cotton-hitting a near 20-year low, with overall imports remaining scarce. No single origin's imports exceeded 10,000 tons. Turkey led, with imports stable month-on-month and up 3,000 tons year-on-year. Australia followed with 6,400 tons, rising 3,000 tons from May but falling 8,000 tons from June 2024. Brazilian cotton, a major earlier importer, dropped to 5,700 tons-down 8,000 tons month-on-month and 39,000 tons year-on-year. Beyond Brazil's peak delivery period having passed, a critical shortage of domestic import quotas was a key driver behind June's weak imports.
In terms of import share, Turkish cotton accounted for 25% of China's cotton imports in Jun, up 6 percentage points from 19% in the previous month and 23 percentage points from 2% in the same period last year. Australian cotton's share stood at 23%, rising 13 percentage points from 10% in the prior month and 14 percentage points from 9% a year ago. Brazilian cotton's proportion dropped to 21%, down 18 percentage points from 39% in May and 8 percentage points from 29% in Jun 2024. However, given the low overall import volume in Jun, these share figures carry limited significance.
For the terms of trade, the share of ordinary trade in Jun rose by 11 percentage points from the previous month to 33%. The combined proportion of entrepot trade by bonded area and customs warehousing trade accounted for stood at 53%, down 9 percentage points from 62% in the previous month. The proportion of processing with imported materials fell by 2 percentage points from the previous month to 14%.
In Jun, enterprises in Shandong, Jiangsu, and Shanghai ranked as the top three in cotton imports. Shandong's share rose 10 percentage points from the previous month to 47%, while Shanghai's share dropped 12 percentage points to 10% and Jiangsu's fell 2 percentage points to 18%.
General condition of China cotton imports:
On the afternoon of July 31, 2024, after the closing of Zhengzhou cotton, the relevant department released the announcement on the allocation of the sliding-scale duty quota for imported cotton in 2024. The allocation volume was only 200,000 tons, all of which were non - state - trading quotas, limited to the enterprises that had carried out cotton processing trade since 2020, and imported in the form of processing trade. The sliding-scale duty quotas were distributed successively in September. At the end of September, 894,000 tons of cotton quotas under 1% tariff was announced, and this part of the quota was distributed for use in January 2025. The known quota for the 2024/25 season was only 1.094 million tons for the time being.
On March 4, 2025, the Tariff Commission of the State Council announced an additional 15% tariff on US cotton. Under the 1% tariff quota, the import tax rate of US cotton was: 1% + 15% + 10% reciprocal tariff. It was expected that the import volume of US cotton would remain at a low level in the later period.
Turkish cotton saw the highest imports in China in Jun 2025. China imported 7,000 tons of Turkish cotton, up 500 tons month-on-month and 3,400 tons year-on-year. In the first half year of 2025, China's imports of Turkish cotton reached 43,900 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 15,000 tons. In the 2024/25 season (Sep-Jun), imports of Turkish cotton stood at 47,000 tons, down 46,000 tons from the same period of the previous season (93,000 tons).
The average unit price of imported cotton is calculated by dividing the total customs value of imported cotton by the total quantity. Among the major imported cotton varieties in Jun, the average price of Turkish cotton was 84.63cent/lb, Australian cotton at 80.91cent/lb, and Brazilian cotton at 77.85cent/lb.
Conclusion:
It is forecast that cotton imports may remain at historical low level in Jul due to limited cotton quotas.
Source: ccfgroup.com