For the last about thirty years, the Secretariat of the International Cotton Advisory Committee has undertaken surveys on cotton of producing cotton in the world. Initially the data was updated ever 1-2 years but since 1983, reports on cost of production have been published every three years. The latest report was published in October 1998 and is based on the data for the year 1997/98. For the sake of consistency in the data collected year after year, since 1992, the same questionnaire has been used to collect information from various countries.