Cotton export forecast hiked by 10 per cent for current year

MUMBAI: India's cotton exports are likely to be 12.7 million bales in the season that began on October 1, 2011, up about 10 per cent from an earlier estimate, a senior government official said on Thursday.

But the country's Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) failed to issue a forecast for production and exports in the year starting October 1, 2012 because a drought has made assessing acreage planted difficult, Textile Commissioner AB Joshi said.

"We could not arrive at a conclusion on production estimate for the next season," Joshi told reporters after the CAB meeting.

India is the world's second-largest exporter of the fibre after the United States, which shipped around 15 million bales in its 2011-12 year.

India's cotton output was revised to 35.3 million bales in 2011-12 from 34.7 million bales earlier.