CAIRO (Updated) - Egypt has imposed a temporary ban on raw cotton imports until the local crop has been sold after domestic prices this season fell compared to last year, the trade minister said on Thursday. Encouraged by lucrative prices in the 2010/11 season, Egyptian farmers cultivated more cotton this year but have now had trouble shifting stocks as traders offered lower prices. "This is a temporary action not a permanent one," Mahmoud Eisa told Reuters about the ban. An aide to the minister said the import ban was on raw. The minister was confirming a report on the ban first carried by al-Mal daily. Salah Moawad, senior Agriculture Ministry official told al-Mal, that 50 million Egyptian pounds ($8.4 million) had been allocated by the Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit to buy cotton from local cooperatives. Farmers have been seeking to sell their cotton at 1,700 pounds per qintar, a measurement equivalent to 160 kg of cotton and 50 kg of cotton lint, while the price of imported cotton was about 1,500 pounds per qintar. The decision to ban imports was criticised by the chamber of textile industries because of fears that highly priced Egyptian cotton would add to the financial burdens of manufacturers, al-Mal reported. "Egyptian industries should accommodate themselves with Egyptian cotton until this issue (has been solved)," Eisa said, adding that he did not expect the ban to last for long. "May be in three months all these problems will be solved and then we will be back for importing," he said. Egypt's local cotton production is estimated at 3.7 million qintars of which 2 million qintars will be exported, leaving only 1.7 million qintars for the domestic market, not enough to fulfil local demand, said Adel Ezzi, president of a committee for Egypt's domestic cotton trade told al-Mal. "The delay of importing cotton is not expected to last until the end of the current season in August," Ezzi said.
