MUMBAI, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Indian traders have contracted 1.79 million bales of raw cotton (of 170 kg each) for exports so far in the 2009/10 marketing year which began in October, a government official said on Monday 30 November.

Photo : AFP

"There is excellent demand from China where crop is seen lower," the official in the Ministry of Textiles, who didn't wish to be quoted, said.

China's 2009/10 domestic cotton production is estimated at 6.8 million tonnes, down 15 percent, or 1.2 million tonnes, from the previous year as per a recent report issued by a U.S. Department of Agriculture attache. India's cotton exports in 2009/10 are expected to increase 57 percent to 5.5 million bales, A.B. Joshi, textile commissioner and chairman of Cotton Advisory Board (CAB), had told Reuters earlier this month.

India, however, is likely to harvest 29.5 million bales of cotton in 2009/10, down from 30.5 million bales estimated earlier, as floods and cyclone damaged the crop in southern and western part of the country.

(Reporting by Sourav Mishra; Editing by Prem Udayabhanu)