Export ban dents cotton market

　　India, the world's second-largest cotton producer, would need to offer "cheap" prices to win back export share for its next crop after a shipment ban dented buyer confidence, Louis Dreyfus Cotton said on Wednesday.

　　"It's costing them market share as buyers are unable to buy forward in size for Indian cotton because they aren't sure it's going to be available," Joe Nicosia, chief executive officer of the largest cotton trader, said on Wednesday. "Whenever you put an export ban in, all you do is hurt your credibility."

　　India halted exports in April to cool domestic prices and bolster supplies, and then introduced a new licensing system for shipments a month later.

　　Curbs on overseas sales would end for the new crop year amid forecasts of a record harvest, AB Joshi, the nation's textiles commissioner, said in an interview in Mumbai on July 1.

　　"When those exports happen in earnest, they will have to happen quickly and they will have to happen cheap," Nicosia said.

　　"They will have to buy their way back into the marketplace." India had lost market share mainly to supplies from the United States, West Africa and Brazil, he said.

　　Cotton for December delivery gained 0.9 percent to 81.13 cents a pound on Tuesday on ICE Futures US in New York.

　　"The India crop is going to be extremely large," said Nicosia. Output for the crop, mostly picked from September to December, could exceed Indian estimates and be "substantially" more than 32 million bales, he said.

　　The cotton business of closely held Louis Dreyfus & Cie SA trades as Allenberg Cotton Co in the US and is based in Cordova, Tennessee.

　　India's output will be 29.5 million bales of 170 kilograms each in the year to Sept 30, the Cotton Advisory Board said on July 30.

　　Output may reach a record 32.5 million bales in the year starting Oct 1, DK Nair, secretary-general of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, said on June 30.

　　Demand for US cotton had eased since a rally to about 80 cents after sales surged when prices fell toward 73 cents. March futures were being supported by logistics concerns, Nicosia said.

　　"The United States is going to have a big crop, the question is, how fast can it move," Nicosia earlier told an industry conference.

　　"We have sold more cotton in the last 10 weeks than almost any time in history so we going to have huge shipments coming out as soon as the US crop is ready to go."

　　China was likely to remain active in the import market with stockpiles falling to reasonably low levels while the domestic crop was in "fairly decent shape", Nicosia said.

　　"The fact that they are beginning with tighter stocks than they had in the past just means they have less room for error, going forward," he said.