The Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) on Monday reported that cotton production remained 40.28pc less than the last year’s harvest by Dec 1, an alarming drop of 2.9m bales. Last year, Pakistan produced over 7.168m bales before the start of December against 4.28m bales this year.
The country would only be able to produce about 4.8 million bales this season, and 6 to 7 million bales will need to be imported to keep the textile mills operating, according to Naseem Usman, head of the Karachi Cotton Brokers Forum. Citing cotton importers, he said until now import arrangements for around 5 million bales had been reached.
During this period, the export of cotton was 4,900 bales, which is 11,100 bales or 69.38pc less than the export of 16,000 bales in the same period last year. Textile mills bought over 3.568m bales against 3.19m bales or 46.56pc less than last year’s purchases of around 6.7m bales. Ginners have a stock of 0.767m bales, 49.25pc higher than last year’s stock of 0.473m bales.
PCGA leader Javaid Suhail said climate change and floods have caused more than 40% decrease in cotton output, causing financial hardship for the country. “At least 79pc cotton area, especially in Sindh, was hit by floods as gates of ginning factories could not open there this year.”
Only 2.01m hectares could be brought under the crop both in Punjab and Sindh against the combined 2.53m hectares target this season.
It is argued by the community that the agriculture authorities would have to adjust the cotton plantation period by sowing it during the months of February and March instead of May and June to counter climate change, which is badly affecting silver fiber production.
