Pakistan textile industry touches $10.385b in nine months of this FY

Cotton is an important source of raw material to the textile industry which has helped the textile industry to achieve $ 10.385 billion during the period of first nine months of this fiscal year as foreign exchange to national exchequer. The cotton shares 1.4 percent in GDP and 6.7 percent in agriculture value addition, which was cultivated on an area of 28,06,000 hectares, 2.5 percent less than last year’s area of 28,79,000 hectares. The production stood at 12.8 million bales during the period against the target of 14.1 million bales set, according to the Ministry of Textile. However, there is a decline seen in the cotton production due to diminution in the area sown as the cotton growers are getting less market return for their cotton nationally and internationally which has been prevailing during last two years. This has lead to discouragement amongst many cotton growers from putting more area under cotton cultivation and has been forced to shift the area to other crops like maize and rice in some districts of Punjab due to their better market returns.