OREANDA-NEWS. February 12, 2015. China's cotton imports will increase starting in the next crop year and will triple from current levels by the 2024/25 crop year, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in its annual Long-term Agricultural Projections report on Wednesday.

The forecasts should provide some relief to US cotton growers, who fretted that a 2014 reform of top-consumer China's fiber stockpiling program and slashing of its import quota would substantially reduce its imports, pressuring global prices.

China's cotton imports will grow by an average of 11.2 percent a year between the 2015/16 crop year, beginning Aug. 1, and reach 22 million bales a year by 2024/25. China is expected to import 7.3 million bales in the 2014/15 crop year to July 31, the USDA said Tuesday in its monthly supply-demand report.

The USDA's Wednesday report also forecast that overall world cotton trade would grow by 4.6 percent a year between 2015/16 and 2024/25, and will reach a record high in 2021/22, as it recovers from a sharp decline in 2013/14 and 2014/15 due to reduced imports from China.

The United States, currently the world's leading cotton exporter, will see its exports grow by 1.1 percent annually to 11.6 million bales by 2024/25, though its share of the total world cotton trade will fall to 21.3 percent in ten years, down from around one-third of total exports today.

US farmers are projected to plant fewer than 10 million acres of cotton in 2014/15 due to lower prices, the USDA said.

The figures are in line with Saturday's National Cotton Council estimate of 9.4 million acres planted in 2015 and a Reuters poll estimate of 9.8 million acres.