The Indian Cotton Federation’s (ICF) annual conference is slated for September 13th and 14th at Le Meridien in Coimbatore.

ICF (formerly The South India Cotton Association), at its conference last year, had called upon the industry stakeholders to discuss the challenges facing the cotton trade and industry.

The year though, the season seems to have begun well, and as a policy initiative Cotton Corporation of India could procure almost 8 per cent of the production for stabilising the price levels, said ICF President J. Thulasidaran.

Yet, there are a host of problems confronting the sector such as competition from China, Bangladesh and Thailand and the Government’s textile export target of $50 billion, which is putting pressure on the industry to gear up to meet the challenge.

“A transparent policy initiative needs collective thinking,’’ said Mr Thulasidaran, urging industry stakeholders to take part in the discussion.