LAHORE: Only a single deal reported in the local cotton market on Friday in process of slow trading activity.
Cotton Analyst Naseem Usman told Business Recorder that Spot Rate remained unchanged. He also told that rate of cotton in Punjab and Sindh is in between Rs 18000 to Rs 20,000 per maund.
400 bales of Khair Pur were sold at Rs 20, 700 (credit) per maund and 400 bales of Jalal Pur were sold at Rs 20,000 per maund.
Naseem Usman also told that Punjab Minister for Agriculture Syed Husnain Jahania Gardezi has emphasised the use of modern technology and Integrated Pest Management for improving cotton crop management and field results.
Addressing a seminar organised by the Punjab University Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB), he further said that agriculture was the backbone of our country and nearly 60% of country’s export was based on cotton and cotton-related products.
Agricultural Secretary Punjab Asad Rahman Gilani, Dean Life Sciences Punjab University Dr Javed Iqbal Qazi, Dean Institute of Agricultural Sciences Dr Saleem Haider, Sindh Seed Council member Nadeem Shah, representatives of more than nine seed companies, growers and farmers from across Pakistan, senior professors from educational and research institutes, faculty members and researchers were present on this occasion.
Gardezi further said that seed traceability by fingerprinting was the key to control the quality of seed. He assured full support of the government for the distribution of CEMB cotton varieties to the farmers across Pakistan. CEMB Director Prof Dr Ahmad Ali Shahid briefed the audience about CEMB’s struggle for developing and commercialising cotton varieties CKC1, two, and three. He paid his gratitude to all the funding agencies and hundreds of researchers who have been working on cotton variety development at CEMB since the ’90s.
Later, Prof Dr Abdul Qayyum Rao, Prof Dr Bushra Rashid, Dr Allah Bakhsh, Prof Dr Tayyab Husnain, Prof Dr Idrees Ahmed Nasir and others shared the CEMB cotton varieties’ success story with the audience and briefed them about constraints in cotton development and the NBC guidelines that should be followed for cultivation of transgenic varieties. Nadeem Shah suggested that experienced researchers and breeders should be included in think tank for policy-making.
Khawaja M Zubair, Chairman, the Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) has expressed his deep concern over the undesirable delay/refusal into issuance of necessary permits to the importers of raw cotton by the Department of Plant Protection, Government of Pakistan on the misinterpretation of law, despite fulfilling all the requirements including Phyto-Sanitary Certificate of the country of origin and fumigation.
The permits issued by the Department of Plant Protection are required for clearance of consignments of imported raw cotton from the port. Due to delay/ refusal into issue necessary permits by the Department of Plant Protection, not only the heavy demurrage and detention on the consignments of imported raw cotton are involved on daily basis but also the local export oriented textile industry are facing problems and difficulties to meet their requirement of raw material to fulfil their contractual obligations of exports of value added textile products with their foreign buyers in timely manner.
Khawaja M Zubair, Chairman, the KCA said that due to acute shortage of raw cotton in the country owing to failure of local cotton crop since last 04-05 years, the local textile industry is compelled to import raw cotton from abroad to meet it’s rising requirement of raw material to keep their textile mills in operation and timely fulfil their contractual obligations of exports of value added textile products with their foreign buyers.
In such a situation, the Department of Plant Protection is going against the policy of the Government to boost exports of the country to earn much needed foreign exchange for the country by delaying/refusing to issue necessary permits to the importers of raw cotton, resulting in considerable delay in clearance of consignments of imported raw cotton from the port.
He also said that due to misinterpretation of law by the Department of Plant Protection, foreign shippers of raw cotton including shipper from Singapore, who is the second largest shipper of raw cotton in the world and having 30% share of the Government of Singapore, is reluctant to ship raw cotton to Pakistan.
Khawaja M Zubair, Chairman, the KCA urges upon the Government of Pakistan/ Ministry of National Food Security and Research to look into the matter immediately, in the best interest of the cotton economy and play its due role in addressing this serious issue concerning to the local exports oriented textile industry, otherwise, our regional competitors would take advantage of this situation by capturing our foreign buyers of valued added products of textiles, resulting in not only the exports of Pakistan would be badly affected but also incur heavy losses of foreign exchange for the country
Moreover, ICE cotton futures rose on Thursday after a federal weekly export sales report highlighted strong buying activity for the natural fiber amid growing concerns over a shortfall in supply.
The most active May cotton contract on ICE futures was up 0.57 cent, or 0.4%, at 130.60 cents per lb, as of 11:30 a.m. ET. Prices traded within a range of 129.36 and 131.61 cents a lb.
The Spot Rate remained unchanged at Rs 20,000 per maund. Polyester Fiber was available at Rs 285 per kg.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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