We said yesterday that China remains the big wildcard for prices, sitting on more than half of the worldΆs projected ending stocks and yet still importing quality cotton from the U.S.

There is still no “official” confirmation of what we first reported last month; that Beijing is considering a radical change in their domestic support for cotton farmers, which would be adoptiong direct subsidies similar to the U.S. target price and deficiency payment system instead of buying up cotton and socking it into reserves which already total a whopping 14-month supply of ChinaΆs annual consumption. But we may be seeing a bit “hint” that those predictions by Chinese textile mill authorities are correct.

Today we learned that ChinaΆs cotton imports for June fell 22% from May levels. The info is from the China Cotton Association and officials note also that June imports were 43% lower than a year ago for June. And so far this year, ChinaΆs cotton imports total 2.41 million tonnes, 21% lower than this time a year ago.