Indonesia’s largest textile manufacturing company, PT. Apac Inti Corpora, has acknowledged the merits and demerits of Australian cotton, but believes it holds its own with most competitors from a spinners perspective.

Company representative, Vijayshankar M.N, told the Australian Cotton Conference that all spinners need long, strong and clean cottons at a competitive price, no matter which spinning system is used.

“Cotton, being a natural fibre, has wide variations from region to region, field to filed, gin to gin, season to season, and shipment to shipment. Australia is known for its adoption of technology and innovation in growing and ginning in order to cater the needs of the spinning industry,” he said.

He observed that the quality of Australian cotton, in general, compares very favourably with other upland growths for medium count ranges. In terms of strength, maturity, reflectance, whiteness  and grade it shows consistent improvement.

However, trash content shows wide fluctuations and needs to be improved, and micronaire, neps and contamination also show deterioration, and need urgent attention.

“The effect of coarse micronaire of Australian cotton persists even in combed yarns, where a difference of 0.5 in micronaire brings a big difference in strength, evenness and thin places in both carded and combed yarns.”

He noted that Australian cotton has the lowest level of contamination, but a majority of external contaminants are of fibrous type including human hair, animal hair, bird feathers, yarn and cloth pieces, polypropylene fibres, jute, etc. 

“Australian cotton can be called as spinner’s delight because of various advantages over other growths of cottons used for medium counts of 100 per cent cotton yarns and blends.

“The first and the foremost advantage is predictability of most characteristics; consistency of quality both with in and between shipments; the lowest level of external contamination and low levels of  honey dew and stickiness; and good maturity, reflectance, whiteness and grade

“The major constraints to why most spinners are not able to use 100 per cent Australian cottons in mixing are: the high micronaire of Australian cotton which imposes limit on spinability and yarn strength, and a high level of neps.

“There are also problems with the non-availability of cottons suitable for a wide range of counts; lack of year-round shipments; and the issue of price competitiveness, with many other developed countries providing subsidies and also offering attractive payment terms.”

He suggested further research and effort into maintaining the micronaire of Australian cotton  within the prime range of  4.0 + 0.2: increased emphasis on reducing neps and short fibres; and continuous improvement in contamination reduction;

“We are sure that if the abovementioned shortcomings are given priority, and then a larger share in the world markets is assured for Australian cotton.”