China, the world's largest cotton grower and consumer, may not boost imports in the new marketing year because domestic supplies are ample and demand for textile products is sluggish, the China Cotton Association said.

A ``considerable'' amount of the crop harvested in the year that ended Aug. 31, including 350,000 tons from Xinjiang, the country's biggest producing province, will be added to this year's stockpiles, the association said today in a posted on its Web site. With the bulk of the new crop hitting the market soon, textile mills are ``more cautious'' with buying and domestic cotton prices will fall further, the group said.

China's production and exports of textile products grew at a slower pace this year than last year, even as international fiber prices tumbled, according to the group, which is made up of farmers, textile mills and industry researchers. Mills bought 1.64 million tons of cotton from foreign producers in the first eight months this year, 1.3 percent less than the same period a year earlier, according to data from the General Administration of Customs agency in Beijing.

China's cotton crop may total 7.75 million tons this year, compared with 7.62 million last year, the group said, citing data from the National Bureau of Statistics. Last month, the country imported186,900 tons of cotton, down 28 percent from a year earlier, the cotton association said.

The U.S. is the biggest cotton exporter.