Despite of sharp decline in cotton prices in international market and increasing domestic prices, imports of the cotton witnessed a year-on-year drop of 60 percent.

In January, cotton imports stood at 123,000 tons, a decrease of 59.1 percent compared to same period last year.

The major factors, which affected the imports, are limited tariff quotas for domestic textiles enterprises.

In domestic factories, average price of local standard-class cotton was 12,948 Yuan per ton in January, a surge of 1.1 percent from December last year.

On cotton, National Development and Reform Commission has imposed import tariff quota of 894,000 tons.

During this period, textile and garment exports reached US $12.14 billion, a year-on-year increase of 18.6 percent.

Moreover, textile and garment exports touched 144 billion last year, up 25.2 percent over 2005.