Cotton output in India, the world?s second-largest supplier, would reach a record 38 million bales, up nearly 12%, in the next marketing year starting October on plentiful showers, textile minister KS Rao said on Friday. However, although the industry and trade executives expect higher production in 2013-14, some of them remain sceptical about the projected 12% increase in domestic output.

This is because planting of the fibre crop was lower at 11.31 million hectare as on Friday compared with the 11.34 million hectare a year before, according to the agriculture ministry data. Summer sowing usually starts around April and picks up with the progress of monsoon rains, and most of the cotton planting is over by end-August. The country is estimated to have produced 34 million bales of cotton in 2012-13. One bale equals 170 kg.

Importantly, the cotton advisory Board (CAB) ? which estimates the production, consumption and exportable surplus of the fibre, among others, almost every quarter ? hasn?t yet met since its last meeting on April 17.

“Production will go up in 2013-14 because cotton yield will rise due to timely and wide-spread monsoon rains across producing states this Kharif,” said DK Nair, secretary-general of the Confederation Of Indian Textile Industry (CITI).

However, a bumper harvest will drive up India’s export prospects amid forecast of a 3.5% drop in global cotton production in 2013-14, although returns are unlikely to hit the record levels achieved in 2010-11. The country has exported 10 million bales of cotton this year, down from a record 12.9 million bales a year before.

Global cotton production will likely drop 3.5% to 25.6 million tonne in 2013-14, the International Cotton Advisory Council said this month. However, world trade is expected to drop by approximately 1 million tonne to 8.80 million tonne due to an expected fall in Chinese imports. Still, India stands to gain as production in the US, the world’s largest cotton exporter, is projected to drop 9,00,000 tonne, or 25%, in 2013-14.

The global benchmark cotton prices, as estimated by Cotlook A Index, may hover in the range of 85 and 126 cents per pound in 2013-14, with a midpoint of 103 cents per pound. In Gujarat, cotton prices (ICS-105 variety, 29mm) were ruling at R48,500 per candy, of 356 kg, on Friday.