AQSIQ: the quality of imported cotton in 2014 is not optimistic.

On March 30, the General Administration of quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine issued a white paper on the quality of imported cotton in 2014 (hereinafter referred to as the "white paper") on its website. The white paper pointed out that the overall arrival quality of imported cotton in 2014 is not optimistic. Among the four major evaluation indicators of cotton, such as grade, length, micronaire value, and fiber strength, the failure rates of grade, length, and strength have all increased compared with the same period last year.

The overall arrival quality of imported cotton in 2014 is not optimistic. The data show that in terms of the quality of cotton imported into China in 2014, the overall average non-compliance rate of grade was 13.38%, an increase of 1.5% compared with 2013 (11.88%), and the overall average non-compliance rate of length was 4.43%, an increase of 1.7% compared with 2013 (2.73%). The overall average non-conformity rate of strength was 3.97%, up 1.23% from 2013 (2.74%). In terms of weight, the inspection found that 86.55% of the batches had short weight, and the overall average short weight rate was 0.96%, an increase of 0.08% compared with 2013 (0.88%).

It is understood that in 2014, the national entry-exit inspection and quarantine organs inspected a total of 9415 batches of imported cotton, 2.7584 million tons, with a total value of 5.81 billion US dollars, a decrease of 37.46 percent, 33.80 percent and 31.41 percent compared with the 2013 batches. Due to the narrowing of the gap between internal and external cotton, the restrictions on the quota of imported cotton and the macro-control of the suspension of imported cotton to national cotton storage, the amount of imported cotton has shrunk sharply.

Xinhua Food has been combed and found that the quality problems of China's cotton imports in 2014 are mainly concentrated in six aspects: first, there are multiple producing areas and batches of cotton and sold in batches, which makes it difficult to guarantee consistency and lead to degradation; second, there is a great difference in the quality between the samples sold by samples and the actual cotton delivered; third, the non-standard packing of cotton bales leads to pollution and decline in quality. Fourth, the phenomenon of short weight is serious, and there is a phenomenon of short loading in some batches; fifth, there are mixed waste cotton, heterosexual fiber, mildew, hardening and other phenomena; sixth, a small number of overseas supply enterprises are dishonest and practice fraud.

In addition, from the distribution of the source of imported cotton, China's imported cotton mainly comes from 40 major cotton-producing countries and regions in the world, including the United States, India, Australia, Uzbekistan, Brazil and Africa. Among them, India, the United States, Australia, Uzbekistan and Brazil were the top five countries in China's cotton imports in 2014, with the total import weight accounting for 88.45% of the total imports and the total goods value accounting for 88.57% of the total imports.

However, from the point of view of the cotton quality from the above-mentioned import sources, there are varying degrees of quality problems. Through the analysis of cotton from various import sources, AQSIQ found that American cotton is gray and yellow in color, poor in gloss, short in length, more in leaf chips, poor in ginning, coarse or fine in micronaire value, and poor in strength in individual batches of cotton. The overall quality of Indian cotton is not high, and during the production and processing of lint cotton, artificial water spraying measures are adopted, and excessive water content often occurs, which makes the cotton fiber hardened and stored for a long time. Mildew and mildew, do not rule out the possibility of individual cotton merchants adulteration Australian cotton, which has always been famous for its good quality and consistency, has a high grade non-conformity rate in the new cotton that arrived in the second half of the year. Under the influence of Rain Water, the gloss is dim and gray, and the grade is obviously worse. Uzbekistan cotton has too many impurities, color gray and poor rolling quality. The color of cotton in African countries is yellow, and there is a widespread discrepancy between the length of delivery and the contract, and the rate of length discrepancy is much higher than that of cotton in other countries.

In view of the above unqualified phenomena, AQSIQ issued claim certificates to the importing countries respectively, and adopted a variety of measures such as credit management and arrival inspection to ensure the quality of imported cotton. According to the data in the white paper, in 2014, China's inspection and quarantine authorities issued a total of 6708 quality claim certificates with a claim amount of US $41.7028 million, and issued 8148 weight claim certificates with a claim amount of US $54.9552 million. The two claims totaled US $96.48 million, accounting for 1.66% of the total import value.