Stability Analysis of India's Raw Cotton Exports

India is one among the major players in raw cotton exports and its share in global cotton trade is expected to increase by 20 percent in 2023. The present study attempts to quantify the changing structure of Indian raw cotton exports from 2004-05 to 2014-15 using first order Markov Chain Approach. The results highlighted that China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Other countries group including Hongkong, Thailand, Malaysia were the stable markets for Indian raw cotton exports while Pakistan, Turkey, Taiwan and Indonesia were the unstable markets. As China's raw cotton imports from India is declining specially from 2012-13 onwards, India should not rely much on China, instead, it has to concentrate on Bangladesh, Vietnam and Taiwan whose export share is expected to increase in future. In addition, India need to establish world class manufacturing units along the cotton value chain to produce finished products which absorbs surplus domestic cotton and in turn provide additional employment opportunities.