Shot in the arm for ginning industry

It is heartening to learn that the Minister for Water and Power, Pervez Ashraf on Friday directed the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) to ensure that ginning factories get uninterrupted power supply and also that there should not be forced and unscheduled load shedding. At the same time, he warned of action against those who fail to follow the orders of minimum load shedding despite increase in power generation.
It was in September when PCGA Chairman Muhammad Akram stressed the need for the textile and agriculture ministries and the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) to work out a policy for countering contamination of cotton, on which the ginneries have been seriously concentrating. It will also be noted that, unlike any other stakeholder in the cotton economy of the country, the ginners are closely linked to the growers as their fortunes rise and fall together.
For as it is, both millers and growers have to depend for basic value addition on ginners. That is why all purposeful activity in the cotton economy is believed to revolve around the ginning industry. This should adequately explain their keen interest in production of clean cotton too. With modernisation of the ginning process on mind, to explore its prospects some of them had lately turned to Turkey, as a result of which a number of units have been set up on the Turkish model too.
It is, however, another matter that progress in that direction remained beset by lack of seriousness of the previous government to address the unending quandary on the cotton front. Now that the new government, which appears to have recognised the vital role of the ginning industry, one can look forward to better days ahead for the cotton sector in the near future.
Significantly, it will also be noted that responding to fears of lower than planned cotton output, cotton prices started staging modest recovery last week, on reports of Trading Corporation of Pakistan's (TCP's) intervention to provide support to prevent a nosedive in prices to the detriment of growers. More to this, ostensibly taking timely notice of the possibility of rising cost of imported cotton, certain mills and textile exporters have been indirectly helping local lint prices to firm up, to the advantage of growers and ginners alongside them.
However, with depleting foreign exchange reserves in the country and uncertain political conditions, the mills, generally speaking, seem to be moving with care and caution in respect of meeting their demand for cotton. Nevertheless, from all indications, larger and more resourceful among them appear to have entered the market in a big way, lifting their requirements at current prices, viewing them as comparatively economical.
As for the future, growers who might be contemplating to abandon cotton and shift to some other crop in for the Rabi season, also for lack of adequate gas and power supply, the strict curb on power load-shedding, if implemented in right earnest can prove a shot in the arm for ginning industry and simultaneously for the textile industry as well.