Half of Xinjiang cotton harvest yet to be sold

Source: Xinhua/Shanghai Daily  |   2008-11-7  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

HALF of the autumn harvest from China's largest cotton plantation area of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region remains unsold.

The China Bank of Agricultural Development, the government's main financial arm on agriculture, confirmed yesterday that the bank had used 22.35 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion) of the fund earmarked for this year by the central government to provide loans to firms to buy cotton by the end of last month, and more financial assistance was planned. The bank could not provide the specific figure of expected subsidies.

However, the bank's statistics showed that the credit, which was higher than the same period last year, has only helped growers sell half of this year's cotton harvest, or 1.29 million tons so far.

Xinjiang produced 2.9 million tons of cotton last year, accounting for more than one third of the country's total.

The bank used 28 billion yuan of the government's subsidies last year in loans to help farmers sell the crop.