Australian cotton company Queensland Cotton has reported a pre-tax operating profit of $9.74 million ($8.1 million) for the year ended February 28, down from $18.97 million in 2006. Post-tax profit was $6.75 million compared with $13.05 million.

Its global marketing operations traded 883,000 bales in the year compared with 1.1 million in the previous year and global ginning operations processed 874,000 bales compared with 986,000. The reduced volumes were primarily due to smaller crops sizes in the geographic regions in which the company operates.

CEO Richard Haire said that marketing volumes are expected to exceed a million bales in the current year, with a significant increase in volume from Brazil.

“Brazil could contribute 250,000 bales which is likely to exceed 20% of total marketing volumes. This compares with 100,000 Brazilian bales which contributed to around 10% of our global volumes from only three years ago,” he said.