Hereby, the Holding Company for Cotton and Textiles, announced that there are a priority for meeting local mills needs from cotton before opening the door of exporting to external markets which its situation has been mysterious till now as local mills has been suffering from lack of cotton lint for along time which pushed many of them to stop production for more than one month which resulted in resorting some mills to import foreign cottons (e.g. Misr El Mehalla), as it was announced and decided, in cooperation between public and private sector, to import about 270 thousands Kantar from Syria, Sudan and Greece. And about 80 thousands kantar, imported from Greece, were actually released but they have been under fumigation process and several tests because it has many problems that could negatively our production from local cotton yarns.Regarding cotton prices, many analysts predicted that cotton prices are expected to increase, especially with the absence of clear announcement for cotton prices in the new season 2003/2004; besides the results of the last meeting of the Committee of Alcotexa on 19/10/2003, which announced the new terms of selling cotton in the new season 2003/2004 (18 items) as the main results was that export prices are determined by sellers and buyers, increase maintenance fees from 1% to 1.25% per month performed starting from the next March 1st , besides writing dates of shipments as well as sales price to each shipment.Herby, H.E. Dr Yousef Botros Ghaly, Minister of Foreign Trade, announced on 25/10/2003 that Egypt has begun receiving new offers for exporting Egyptian cotton with competitive prices exceed expected prices that could have resulted from opening the door of exports in the last moth. Ghaly added that current prices of competitive cottons against the Egyptian cotton are ranging from 118-120 cent/libra. So, prices of Egyptian cottons will exceed prices of competitive cotton near by 5-6 cent/libra. Also. Ghaly assured that cotton exports are open and free without determining quotas for cotton trading companies as it could cause kind of negative pricing ventures.In addition, the local market of cotton is characterized nowadays by the existence of pricing ventures of buying lint cotton in the local markets accompanied with a clear competition between local cotton trading companies.. Source: Sahara Group- R&D Department.

Date:10/26/2003

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