Lower cotton prices may not help Bangladesh in getting increased work orders from global brands and retailers.

For one global retailers and brands can put pressure on garment manufacturers and exporters to reduce prices. Similarly, spinners, millers and cotton importers may not have reason to cheer for the fall in cotton prices because they already have unsold stockpiles of yarn.

Spinners currently have a lot of unsold yarn in their mills because of lower demand from garment manufacturers.So the spinners might not be benefited from the price fall of cotton in international markets. Higher inflation and lower demand have put them in a tight corner.Moreover, spinners cannot spin cotton adequately because of the low gas pressure that has restricted production by almost 50 per cent.In addition, importers do not feel encouraged to import more cotton because of the higher price of the dollar. As such Bangladesh cannot take the opportunity of lower cotton prices now. Bangladesh imports 9.5 million tons of cotton a year.

Global cotton production is up 1.4 million bales at 118.4 million, and stocks are projected higher this month and unchanged from the previous year. Consumption is down slightly at 118.6 million bales with lower projected use in Pakistan and Vietnam.