China, the world’s largest cotton buyer, is reducing purchases of the fiber as demand slows and some mills delay orders, according to Eastern Trading Co., a U.S. exporter.

Eastern’s exports may drop to 1,000 metric tons (4,400 bales) in April from its 4,000-ton monthly average, Chairman Jordan Lea said yesterday in a telephone interview from Greenville, South Carolina. China accounts for about 30 percent of sales at the closely held cotton merchandiser.

Overseas sales by all shippers in the U.S., the world’s largest exporter, declined 9.2 percent to 251,501 bales in the week ended March 31 from a week earlier, according to the Department of Agriculture. Prices in New York have dropped 16 percent since reaching a record $2.197 a pound on March 7.

“Its dead out there,” said Lea, also the president of American Cotton Shippers Association. “Our salesmen in China say that they cannot find any buyers.”

Purchases in other Asian markets have slowed as Chinese merchants re-export U.S. cotton to countries including Taiwan and Vietnam, he said.

China’s imports for March fell 15 percent from a year earlier to 276,400 tons, Reuters reported, citing a website run by the China National Cotton Reserves Corp.

Cotton futures for July delivery fell 5.34 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $1.8557 yesterday on ICE Futures U.S. The most- active contract earlier touched $1.8391, the lowest since Feb. 25. Still, the fiber has more than doubled in the past year.

“Mill usage is bound to come down because of price rationing,” said Mike Stevens, an independent trader in Mandeville, Louisiana.