China's cotton import in January dropped almost 60 percent year on year despite falling cotton prices in the international market and rising domestic prices, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

The country imported 123,000 tons of cotton last month, 59.1 percent down from the same period of last year, said the commission.

It attributed the fall of import to limited import tariff quotas for domestic textile enterprises, adding that the international cotton prices were still not favorable enough.

The CIF (cost, insurance and freight) price of cotton in major Asian ports equaled to 12,075 yuan (1,509 U.S. dollars) per ton with tariffs included, 873 yuan lower than domestic price, said the commission.

The average price of domestic standard-class cotton arriving at factories in China was 12,948 yuan per ton in January, 1.1 percent up from last December.

The commission has allocated import tariff quotas of 894,000 tons for cotton.

Meanwhile, China's export of textiles and garments kept growing in January, rising 18.6 percent year on year to 12.14 billion U.S. dollars.

However, the growth is much slower than that of last December, when the export surged 30.7 percent year on year to 13.4 billion U.S. dollars, as figures from the commission show.

Last year, China exported 144 billion U.S. dollars worth of textiles and garments, 25.2 percent up from 2005.

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)