While Vietnam's cotton yarn imports plunged nearly 12% month-on-month and Indian yarn fell almost 30%, Pakistani yarn managed to hold steady and post an over 80% year-on-year increase. China's May 2026 customs data reveals an accelerating divergence in import patterns: total cotton yarn imports of 172,200 tons contracted 14% month-on-month, but Pakistani yarn's resilience is rewriting the competitive rules in the low-count yarn market.
Dual Pressure from Price and Exchange Rates
Open-end spinning yarn is experiencing a painful price and volume decline. Feedback from mills and traders from Guangdong to Shandong is consistent: inquiries and transactions for open-end yarn at bonded ports and on forward cargoes have slowed significantly. FOB/CNF/CIF quotes from Vietnam, Indonesia, and India continue to edge down, yet buyers remain on the sidelines.
Pakistani yarn's strength is built on price elasticity. Since mid-June, domestic cotton prices in Pakistan have fallen sharply, while easing energy and power supply shortages have boosted mill operating rates, increasing export supply pressure. More critically, the Pakistani rupee's medium- to long-term depreciation against the dollar provides exporters with natural room to lower prices. A light textile import-export company in Zhejiang captures the prevailing sentiment: waiting for the right opportunity to restock Pakistani yarn has become a common strategy among traders.
Order Relocation Is Not the Only Driver
Industry observers attribute the rise in Pakistani yarn imports partly to the relocation of low-margin, low-count textile orders from Southeast Asia back to China, triggered by US-Middle East conflicts. But this is only the surface logic. The deeper reasons include persistently weak domestic demand in Pakistan, forcing mills to offload surplus capacity abroad, and the deepening bilateral trade chain between China and Pakistan for cotton yarn and fabric. Shorter transport distances and stable cotton blending ratios are translating into tangible procurement preferences in the price-sensitive low-count segment.
Notably, the month-on-month declines for Vietnamese and Indian yarn—11.83% and 29.38% respectively—are no coincidence. The wave of relocated orders from Southeast Asia is winding down, while domestic winter-spring orders have yet to kick in, leaving the market in a brief vacuum. In this window, the supplier with the best value proposition secures the next round of contracts.
Policy and Geopolitical Risks Loom
The possibility of the US imposing additional tariffs on Chinese imports based on Section 301 findings in July hangs like a sword over the imported yarn trade. This uncertainty directly suppresses restocking appetite, with open-end yarn, a staple in low-count categories, bearing the brunt.
Yet this creates an even larger opening for Pakistani yarn. Pakistani yarn mainly covers 8S-21S siro-spun varieties, which overlap heavily with open-end yarn applications. While Vietnamese and Indian yarns struggle to stimulate transactions despite price cuts, Pakistani yarn shipments have not notably weakened, indicating that end-use mills are already voting with their orders.