The weather conditions were ideal during this period and thankfully there were no reports of replanting. Due to this fact, compared to previous seasons our crop is some days ahead and this can be promising.

Firstly on an earlier crop problems of green worm are less likely to appear.

Secondly provided the weather is favorable during summer we may have earlier harvest and avoid the rainy days of fall.

The total acreage was at levels of 220,000 hectares and our estimate regarding production, although it is too early to make one, is ranging at 220,000 tons of lint . There is also a more optimistic view that since yields last season were not good, it is more likely that in the coming season yields will improve which means that acreage may have dropped to 15-20% but lint production will decrease at a lower percentage (possibly 10% which means 230,000 tons). Anyway there is still a long way till harvest and we depend a lot on weather conditions…

Business wise, we estimate that so far about 10,000 tons have already been sold basis Dec 13. The most recent sales concluded reached the levels of 500 pts/lb on Dec 13. As the crop develops couple of ginners more will be ready to commit quantities of their coming production. In general there is a trend in our market that due to shortage of cotton in Egypt, Turkey and Greece, the basis for our crop will increase even more when October comes, thatΆs why some ginners like Markou or Sklapanis prefer to hold.

Best regards,

Yiannis Papadogiannis