Cotton arrival shows 6.94pc decrease

MULTAN: The Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA)’s data committee has released the figure of cotton arrival in ginneries across the country till April 15.

Briefing media men here on Tuesday, PCGA data committee members Malik Talat Iqbal, Salman Maqbool and Asif Khalil said that seed cotton (Phutti) equivalent to over 10,775,162 bales of cotton have reached ginneries across Pakistan, showing a decrease of 6.94 per cent as compared to corresponding period last year when the ginneries received 11,579,181 bales.

Ginneries in the Punjab recorded arrival of 6,625,769 bales against the last year arrival of 7,325,758 bales, showing a decrease of 9.56 per cent. Sindh ginneries recorded arrival of 4,149,393 bales while last year it received 4,253,423 bales, showing a decrease of 2.45 per cent.

Textile mills have bought 10,021,796 bales while the exporters bought 102,330 bales. The total bales sold out so far were calculated at 10,124,126 bales. Total eight ginning factories are operational in the country. Of them, seven are in the Punjab and one in Sindh.

Total 809,195 bales are lying in unsold stock. They told that the data was collected with the joint cooperation of PCGA, APTMA and KCA. The Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) may revise cotton production estimates to 10.5 million bales of 170kg each for this season, down from earlier projection of 10.87m bales. The predictions dashed all hopes of harvesting a bumper cotton crop in 2018/19.

The country's overall cotton production has deteriorated over the years in turn, affecting the gross domestic product. The country's last bumper cotton crop of 14.9m bales was harvested in 2013-14. Under the revision, production in Sindh is expected to witness a shortfall of merely 0.1 million bales to 0.12m bales. The province produced 4.253m bales in last season.

Production estimates for Balochistan were also revised upward to 0.15m, which are lower than the last year’s output. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is expected to produce around 0.02m bales. The country's cotton production has been under stress during the last the four years.