The country has produced 12.394 million cotton bales during the 2005-06 season against an official target of 13 million bales, said the final report issued by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) head office here on Friday.
Last year, the country produced a record crop of 14.6 million bales, it observed. The Punjab's production has been computed at 9.849 million bales and that of Sindh at 2.545 million bales.
According to the final production report, textile millers have so far purchased 11.517 million bales and exporters 74,400 bales. Unsold stocks of lint were estimated at 0.793 million bales and those of phutti at 9,565 bales.
Meanwhile, the Federal Committee of Agriculture (FCA) has fixed 13.82 million bales of cotton production target for the next crop (2006-07), sowing for which has already started in Punjab and Sindh.
The cultivation target at the national level has been set at 3.25 million hectares (8.025 million acres). The province-wise sowing target has been fixed as under: Punjab 2.56 million hectares, Sindh 0.64 million hectares, Balochistan 0.04 million hectares and NWFP 0.01 million hectares.
Province-wise production target for the next cotton crop has been set as under: Punjab 10.58 million bales, Sindh 3.13 million bales, Balochistan 0.10 million bales and NWFP 0.01 million bales.
Last year cotton was sown on an area of 3.10 million hectares and the production target was fixed at 13 million bales. The Federal government has increased support price for phutti (seed-cotton) from Rs 975 to Rs 1,025 per 40 kilogram, while the approximate existing rates for phutti and lint in the open market are Rs 1,050 and Rs 2,450 respectively.