England - the way to a better future

摘要

The articles in this issue primarily deal with the achievements of cotton companies over the last 100 years and how they see the future. We are not an old cotton company -- we are about to celebrate our 10th anniversary and as such it is not possibleto play on our history, rather (just like the New World) we have to build our own. Any cotton company which is going to survive and prosper today and into the future must have an enormous capability to adjust at speed. As a friend of mine eloquently stated in a recent article, "This is not your father's cotton business"! There is, however, an enormous difference visible to an international merchant such as ourselves over the progress made in such countries as USA, Australia, etc. to that made in lesser-developed countries. One of the main challenges will be to look at the global supply and demand market place and to try to build some sort of commonality into the way cotton is produced and marketed.