All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) has decided to immediately import around 60,000 cotton bales to meet textile mills'' requirement and control the rising cotton prices in the domestic market, industry sources said.
Skyrocketing cotton price was a big threat to the country''s largest export-oriented textile sector, as the local ginning factories had failed to produce cotton, besides meeting local mills'' demand due to heavy rains, the Aptma added. The Aptma said prices of raw cotton had gone up by Rs 500 per maund during the last three weeks in the wake of shortage of Phutti due to torrential rains.
A high level meeting of Aptma was held on Friday under the chairmanship of its Chairman Shafqat Elahi Shiekh in which the recent cotton price issue was discussed and on the request of the members, a cell for cotton import was formed. The cell will be headed by Tariq Mehmood, a Lahore-based senior member, to receive the cotton quotation requirement of the millers for its import from the neighbouring country.
"We are planing to import around 60,000 cotton bales, but the quantity depends on the members requirement, " said Shafqat Elahi Sheikh. The Aptma instructed its members to inform the cell about their requirement within the next few days to enable the cell to finalise the import process, he said, adding the Aptma would only play the role of a facilitator.
He said that besides import of raw cotton, the meeting discussed some other issues. The meeting decided that all mills, which were facing shortage of cotton, would remain closed on August 14 to celebrate the independence day, he said, and added that previously the mills on this day would be operational.
"We have demanded of the government to allow import of all types of cotton from India via any route, including through railroads, sea etc," he said. He said that some millers, who had surplus cotton stocks, had also offered to purchase cotton from them on market rates.
"We are likely to import raw cotton from Iran and Dubai to meet the local textile millers requirements," said senior Aptma member Yaseen Siddiqui. For the import of cotton, all spadework had been done and now the Aptma was waiting for members'' response, he said.
He said the imported cotton would be cheaper than the local cotton and could be transported to the Pakistani port within eight to 10 days. "As per the Aptma estimates, the imported cotton would cost between Rs 400 and Rs 500 per maund," he said.
At present, the mills were facing shortage of around 4,000-5,000 bales per day, as their demand stood at 10,000 bales against the supply of 6,000-7,000 bales available in the local market, he added. "We believe that the import of cotton will bring down the rising cotton prices, besides scaling down increasing shortage of this commodity," he added.
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