Ginning units receive 11.29 percent less cotton than last year

According to a consolidated statement of Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) 10. 419348 million bales of seed cotton has arrived in 1,200 ginning factories of Punjab and Sindh provinces till 15th December 2005, which were 1.326 million bales or l1.29 percent less than the last year''s corresponding period.
The PCGA released its consolidated statement of cotton arrivals in the ginning factories as on 15th December 2005 on Saturday which showed that this year there had been significant decrease in the cotton production in the Punjab districts namely Muzaffargarh, D.G.Khan, Rajanpur, Bahawalnagar, Multan, Layyah, Vehari, Sahiwl, Pakpattan, Okara, T.T.Singh, Faisalabad and Jhang and Mirpur Khas, Khairpur, Ghotki and Sukkur districts in the Sindh province.
The fortnightly PCGA data statement prepared with joint co-operation of APTMA & KCA also indicated that the ginning factories had ginned 9.069138 million bales of seed cotton (phutti), while over 1.3 million bales remained unginned and fresh arrivals were slowing down.
Of the ginned cotton, textile mills have bought 7.435965 million bales, exporters 54,600 bales, and the unsold stock lying with ginning factories was nearly 3 million bales, 700,000 bales more than the last years unsold stock.
The statement indicated that the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) which had bought 9.83 million bales of seed cotton till 15th December 2004, did not buy a single bale this year due to higher prices in the open market (Rs 1,050 to Rs 1,175 per 40 KG) than the support price fixed by the government for this season.
PCGA experts told Business Recorder that this year cotton production was likely to be around 12.5 million bales about 2 million bales less than the last year''s record production.
"Since the growers had already got lucrative cotton prices and the final pick finished a fortnight ago, we do not expect significant arrivals of cotton at the fag end of the season " they added.
However they were of the view that the country had still produced sufficient cotton to meet requirements of its textile industry which was backbone of its economy and main source of foreign exchange earnings.