Pakistan cotton production up as arrival increases 12 pc or 1 mn additional bales

World’s third largest cotton grower – Pakistan, has produced more cotton than last year. Ginneries have reportedly received 9.518 million bales of cotton up to 15 November 2013, an increase of one million bales, or 11.73 per cent, over the corresponding period last year when 8.519 million bales were produced. The impressive increase in arrivals indicate that the crop size will be even larger than the government estimates of 12.9 million bales and may even exceed 14 million bales.

However, higher cotton production may dampen prices, resulting in heavy loss to growers. Experts fear that if no appropriate measures are taken by the government to safeguard the interest of growers, cotton cultivation next year will drop and that will also hurt the textile industry.

Although mill buying stood higher at 7.306 million bales this year as against 6.659 million bales they purchased in the same period last year, exporters are not inclined to build inventory even at falling cotton prices.

The dramatic increase in arrival in Punjab has completely changed the initial production estimates which were put at around 12.65 million bales by the government. In the fortnightly of Nov 1 to 15) alone, phutti arrivals data issued by the Pakistan Cotton Ginner’s Association (PCGA) showed that cotton production in Punjab increased by 8.41pc to 6.204 million bales as against 5.723 million bales produced last year. This would mean that 481,068 more cotton bales were produced in Punjab.

Similarly, sustained arrival in Sindh also pushed cotton production higher by 18.53 pc to 3.313 million bales compared to 2.795 million bales last year. This translates into production of around 517,987 more bales during period under review.