Textile executives from five Bangladeshi and three Pakistani textile mills are touring the U.S. Cotton Belt July 25-Aug. 2 to get more familiar with U.S. cotton production, processing and marketing and to meet with U.S. exporters.
This and all COTTON USA Special Trade Missions are aimed specifically at building trading ties between the U.S. cotton industry and key textile manufacturing leaders — with an overall goal of helping U.S. cotton capture additional market share overseas.
Pakistan is the world’s third largest cotton consumer — 11.6 million bales estimated for the 2010 marketing year — while Bangladesh is the world’s sixth largest consumer and is estimated to consume 4.25 million bales this year.
“The United States supplies more than half the cotton these eight textile participating manufacturers import each year,” said Wallace L. (Wally) Darneille, a Lubbock, Texas, cooperative official and president of Cotton Council International (CCI), which sponsors the trade mission. “This is a wonderful opportunity to give these important U.S. cotton customers an intimate look at our industry infrastructure and our commitment to reliably supplying quality fiber to the world marketplace.”
The participants will participate in an ICE Futures seminar; visit a farm and gin in the Corpus Christi, Texas, area; observe cotton research in North Carolina, and tour the USDA cotton classing office in Bartlett, Tenn. They will meet with exporters in the four major Cotton Belt regions and get briefings from CCI, the National Cotton Council, the American Cotton Producers, Cotton Incorporated, the American Cotton Shippers Association, the Texas Cotton Association, the Lubbock Cotton Exchange, AMCOT, the Western Cotton Shippers Association, the Southern Cotton Growers Association, the Plains Cotton Growers Association, the San Joaquin Valley Quality Cotton Growers Association and Supima.