Business Club March 06 News 2011/12 US domestic cotton mills are expected to use 3.5 million bales, a 10% reduction from 2010/11 estimates. However, US textile mill use has been declining since 1997/98. This estimate is less than half of the US mill's use in 2002/03. The 2011/12 consumption is estimated to be the lowest in more than a century.

As the U.S. Census Bureau cancelled its monthly report on the use of cotton mills in August 2011, the 2011/12 mill use estimate is based entirely on data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Bureau. Based on the August-December 2011 data, US cotton mill use can be compared to the same period in 2009, and textile mill use in 2009 is similar to this year's estimate. Although cotton prices have declined since a year ago, fiber competition continues to benefit man-made fibers. At the same time, the US economy is expected to grow slowly in 2012, and most of the time in the second half of 2011/12, US cotton mill use growth may remain weak.

Consumer demand for US cotton textiles and apparel products is still sluggish, as growth in returns on cotton textiles and apparel products has slowed, while the proportion of cotton fibers relative to other fibers has declined in cotton textiles and apparel products. In the calendar year of 2010, cotton textiles and apparel imports reached 20.5 million bales (equivalent), the highest in three years. Imports decreased by about 13% in 2011 to the lowest level since 2000. In contrast, the export of cotton products has increased in recent years, and most of them are exported to the surrounding preferential trading partners.

The rumors indicate that the western hemisphere countries have benefited from smaller and fast turnover orders in the US retail market. In 2011, the data showed that the export of cotton textiles and clothing increased by 3% compared to the 3.7 million bales of cotton in 2010 (equivalent).

According to the US textile mill use and net textile trade, it is estimated that US household cotton consumption has dropped to the lowest level in 15 years. In the 2011 calendar year, the U.S. domestic cotton consumption was reduced to 17.6 million bales (equivalent), compared with 20.6 million bales in 2010. Similarly, the average American cotton consumption in the calendar year of 2011 decreased to 27 pounds, a decrease of nearly 5 pounds from the previous year.