Report Highlights: Syria's 2005/2006 cotton crop is estimated at 1,030,000 metric tons of seed cotton grown on 245,000 hectares. Lint production is estimated at 350,000 tons. Total domestic lint consumption for yarn spinning is estimated at 150,000 tons.
About 200,000 tons of cotton lint are expected to be exported. In 2006/2007, the Cotton Bureau plans to license planting for 225,000 hectares.
Executive Summary The Cotton Bureau of the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform controls Cotton production to a great extent. The Cotton Bureau sets the total planted areas and encourages early planting and harvesting of seed cotton.
When irrigation water is not a constraint, farmers exceed the licensed areas and the crop exceeds one million tons of seed cotton.
The government sets the prices for buying cotton seeds from the farmers. The crop, estimated at 1,030,000 MT of seed cotton, is ginned to produce approximately 350,000 MT of cotton lint. Spinning facilities are not sufficient to process the whole crop. Only 150,000 MT of cotton lint are utilized locally for yarn production.
The balance of the crop, 200,000 MT of cotton lint, is exported. Syria needs more than double its current spinning facilities to process all the cotton lint production and make use of the value added in exporting yarn andtextiles instead of cotton lint.
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