Industry to be left with two million surplus cotton bales by year end: Aptma

All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) leadership has apprehended that the industry would be left with two million surplus cotton stocks by the year end due to another domestically bumper crop of 15 million bales besides import of some two million bales of cotton from abroad.
Talking to a select group of media persons, Chairman Aptma Ahsan Bashir, Vice Chairman Wisal Monnoo and Chairman Aptma Punjab Shahzad Ali Khan said a total of 8.519 million bales have arrived to the market so far. A deep analysis of crop arrivals from 2001-02 until date suggest that an average of 57 per cent of the crops arrives until November 15. If 57 per cent of the cotton crop comes around 8.5 million bales until November 15 than 100 per cent of crop is likely to touch the level of 14.945 million bales by the end of the season when positive indicators including crop condition is quite healthy with no pest attack and arrival of early crop are well in place, they added.
The Aptma leadership has said that the industry has so far made contracts of 1.5 million bales from across the world, as international rate is cheaper than local one. On the other hand, they said, the consumption of cotton by the industry is declining fast because of energy shortage. The industry can easily consume 16 million bales if it gets uninterrupted energy supply and can pay the farmers better price accordingly.
They said that production of cotton crop is on the rise since last year, growing surplus than actual demand. They added that a total of 550,000 more bales. According to them, the cotton prices have increased artificially during last three weeks due to the propagated of vested interest elements that the crop is not only damaged widely but also short of estimates. Resultantly, they said, the imported cotton is cheaper and reaches to factory at Rs 6000 per maund against Rs 6,200 per maund domestically.
They said there is an urgent need of reprioritising the crop consumption, as Pakistan is again heading to record bumper crop and domestic prices are higher on import parity. The industry in Punjab is facing severe energy crisis and two million out of nine million spindles are closed down due to energy shortage.