 The
Bremen Cotton Exchange
“The purpose of the Bremen Cotton Exchange,
created under this name as a ‘body corporate’, is to maintain and to
promote the interests of all those connected with the cotton trade and with the
first stage of processing cotton.”
This is the first paragraph of our by-laws. For more than 130 years,
and under this guiding principle, the Bremen Cotton Exchange has represented its
members, who come from Germany, Europe and overseas. Our registered office is in
the Hanseatic City of Bremen, in which there is a long tradition of cotton
trade.
The Bremen Cotton Exchange is an international raw material
organisation, which together with 16 other cotton exchanges worldwide, ensures
contractually correct dealings in the cotton trade. We therefore maintain
special contract conditions, in which the rules of business are defined. This “constitution”
for the cotton trade includes, for example, its own jurisdiction and the
instruments for settling differences of opinion between the contractual parties
on the quality of the delivered product. Clear, neutral rules are essential for
the trade in a product that is produced in over 80 countries and is constantly
changing in terms of price and quality. The Rules of the International Cotton
Association in Liverpool were adopted in 2006. The aim is worldwide uniform
regulation. Our members, from approximately 30 countries, are recruited from all
parties with an interest in the cotton trade and range from producers through
traders to processors, i.e. spinners and weavers. Our member companies also
include shippers, banks, insurers, forwarders and textile machine engineers.
Since the foundation of our organisation in 1872, the cotton trade
has changed significantly and especially in the last decades, a major structural
change has taken place. Cotton production and the cotton growing area have
continually increased, as has cotton consumption, which, at the expense of the
European textile industry, has more and more relocated to the producing
countries. Even in the age of globalisation and altered trading structures, it
remains a great challenge for us to represent the interests of the cotton trade
at national and international level. We are facing up to this, among other
things, by providing the technology and the know-how for cotton testing, through
international harmonisation of trading rules, as well through cooperation /
amalgamation with other organisations.
International trade in cotton is currently at a record level and
keeping this on the right track is more essential now than ever before.
On behalf of our members, and together with 16 further cotton
organisations worldwide, we ensure the contractually correct handling of cotton
trading. The basis for our work are the Rules of the Bremen Cotton Exchange.
They encompass the trade in raw cotton, cotton waste and linters, as well as
waste products from synthetic fibres and fibre mixtures and include, among other
things, the detailed regulation of the mutual contractual obligations, as well
as an instrument for solving conflict cases. The rules for the “Bremen
Cotton Trade” came into effect in 1872, on the initiative of Bremen
businessmen. |
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