China's raw cotton imports will continue to surge in 2006 with total imports estimated at 3.6 million to 4 million tons, the China Cotton Association forecasts.

At the 2006 Forum of International Cotton Trade held in North China's Tianjin City on Monday, Peter Wakefield, president of International Cotton Association (ICA), conferred his organization's membership certificate to the Tianjin Cotton Exchange.

Wakefield said that the accession of China's largest cotton exchange into the ICA signals China's cotton trade is now bound by international conventions.

Sources with the meeting said that as China opened up its cotton market wider to the world, cotton imports will continue to increase. China imported 2.57 million tons of cotton in 2005.

(Xinhua News Agency April 5, 2006)