Cotton Brazil goes to China to expand market

The Cotton Brazil program, which promotes Brazilian cotton internationally, begins its 2023 agenda this week in China, the largest importer of national cotton. The Brazilian Association of Cotton Producers (Abrapa) carries out a series of actions from March 23 to 28 on Chinese soil that culminate with the official visit of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and include the dissemination of the Brazilian Cotton Quality Program, developed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa) and the association.

“Last year, we had several initiatives planned for China, but due to the pandemic the country remained closed. Now, we want to intensify business and also publicize how the official classification program works”, observes the president of Abrapa, Alexandre Schenkel.

Partnership with CNCE

Schenkel is one of the participants in the Abrapa delegation, which will face a program made up of events, technical visits and meetings with Chinese authorities. The first appointment will be this Wednesday (23/03), at the 2023 CNCE Industry Development Conference, in Beijing.

The event is considered one of the biggest in the cotton market in China and is promoted by the China National Cotton Exchange (CNCE), one of the main organizations in the Chinese cotton chain.

The conference is expected to bring together 500 companies from the Chinese textile sector. To take advantage of the qualified audience, Abrapa prepared a stand at the event. Responsible for coordinating the Cotton Brazil program, the association's Director of International Relations, Marcelo Duarte, will give a talk on the current status of fiber production in Brazil in the event's official program.

This is the sixth event held by Cotton Brazil in China since its creation in 2019. Three other events will be organized by the program in the country in April, in the cities of Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Beijing. They will be part of Abrapa's international mission that will take Brazilian producers and exporters for commercial exchange with the Chinese and South Korean textile market.

Technical visits

Right after the CNCE event, the Abrapa delegation heads to Qingdao, where they will visit the Chinese Inspection and Quarantine agency. The highlight of the agenda will be the series of meetings in bonded warehouses at the Port of Qingdao, the largest in China for cotton imports and the seventh busiest in the world.

Back in Beijing, Abrapa representatives will visit Chinatex and China National Cotton Group Corp. (CNCGC) – largest cotton traders in China. The two state-owned companies move approximately 2,5 million tons of cotton per year.

Official Program

On Monday night (27/03), the Abrapa team meets with the Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Fávaro, and the Brazilian delegation that will accompany President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's official visit to China.

“In our meetings, we will present to representatives of the Chinese private and public sectors how the Brazilian Cotton Quality Program works, developed by the Brazilian government in partnership with Abrapa”, anticipates Schenkel.

The program certifies that the quality analysis of the cotton sample was carried out instrumentally in accordance with international standards and is therefore reliable. To this end, each bale is systematically sampled during ginning, transport and conditioning, following international classification practices by HVI (High Volume Instruments) as a parameter.

“It is a system that is transparent, consistent and reliable enough for the purchasing market, which eliminates the need for additional quality control at the final destination”, explains the president of Abrapa.

Partnership in numbers

According to the Federal Government, China has been, since 2009, Brazil's largest trading partner and one of the main sources of investment in Brazilian territory. In 2022, trade between countries reached a record US$150,5 billion. Brazil and China established a Strategic Partnership in 1993, elevated to a Global Strategic Partnership in 2012. The countries will celebrate 50 years of establishing diplomatic relations in 2024.

In the case of cotton, the relationship is very close: feather was the second largest agricultural product exported to the Chinese in 2022, behind only soybeans. In ten years, imports of Brazilian cotton by China increased by 47,13%, and today, the country is the largest buyer of Brazilian feathers. In the 2021/22 commercial year, 11 Brazilian states exported 455,61 thousand tons of cotton lint to China – which accounted for 27% of shipments in the period.

Cotton Brazil

Created in 2019 by Abrapa, Cotton Brazil is a market development and promotion program for Brazilian cotton on a global scale. The initiative is carried out in partnership with the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) and has support from the National Association of Cotton Exporters (Anea) and the ministries of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa) and Foreign Relations (MRE).