China harvested 4.87 million tonnes of cotton in 2003, down a year-on-year 0.9 percent despite an acreage increase of 20 percent, the State Statistical Bureau said on Tuesday.
The bureau did not give any reasons for the decline, but industry officials said the crop was damaged by rain in major cotton-growing areas along the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers last year.
China has increased imports of cotton in order to bring down domestic prices and help textile firms amid a supply squeeze. China's cotton imports rose about 400 percent in 2003 to 873,597 tonnes.
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