Latest Chinese customs figures point to a dramatic surge in China’s overseas cotton buying, with June 2026 shipments climbing to roughly 110,000 tons, a jump of 294.9% compared with the same month last year.
Looking at the first six months of 2026, total inbound cotton volumes reached close to 940,000 tons, more than double the figure recorded over the equivalent stretch in 2025.
On the financial side, June’s imports carried a price tag of RMB 1.36 billion, representing growth of 244.70% year-on-year.
For the six-month period from January through June, spending on cotton imports totaled nearly RMB 11 billion, a rise of 75.80% compared to the same period in the prior year.
Industry watchers note that this pace of expansion is simply a continuation of the outsized gains already visible throughout the second quarter, with supplies from Brazil and the United States continuing to dominate the country’s sourcing mix.
Traders, brokers and mill operators across the sector describe June’s numbers as broadly consistent with what the market had anticipated.
Much of the eye-catching percentage growth reflects how depressed last year’s comparison point was.
China imported a mere 27,400 tons in June 2025, itself a steep 82.33% decline from a year ago month.
But according to the China Cotton Network Report, market participants point to two additional forces at play beyond this base effect.
To begin with, ICE futures prices twice slid to fresh lows during the month, touching 75.17 cents per pound on June 11 and dipping further to 75.50 cents on June 26.
These declines widened the gap between the cost of bringing cotton in from overseas—after accounting for either the 1% duty or the sliding tariff structure—and the price of domestically stored Xinjiang cotton sitting in inland facilities.
That gap made foreign-sourced fibre an increasingly appealing option for both spinning mills and trading houses within China.
A second factor traces back to instability in the Middle East, which has hampered the capacity of garment and textile producers across Southeast Asia to accept and complete orders.
As a result, a considerable share of business tied to cotton goods bound for markets in Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea has migrated toward China’s eastern seaboard—provinces including Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Shandong have been prime beneficiaries.
Notably, many of these relocated orders required strict supply-chain traceability, which in turn fueled stronger appetite for imported raw cotton.
Index courtesy: IndiaMart
