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| 11 September 2004 | Saturday | 25 Rajab 1425 |
TCP gets Rs500m for cotton
KARACHI, Sept 10: The Trading Corporation of Pakistan has secured a credit line of Rs500 million to finance the procurement of cotton during September 2004.
This was stated by TCP Chairman Syed Masood Alam Rizvi here on Friday. He said the TCP had secured a credit line to support the anticipated procurement of cotton in the month of September.
He said that this credit line had been arranged through the State Bank as allowed by the government under its "cotton support policy". The TCP chief said that next credit facility would be negotiated with the pools of five banks for the quarter - October to December 2004 - to finance cotton purchase.
Mr Rizvi said the corporation was ready to begin cotton procurement at its 12 centres in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan. Responding to the question regarding the instructions of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz for the corporation to go beyond the target of 100,000 bales, he said the TCP could buy any quantity of cotton.
He said that current prices of phutti (seed cotton) were staying above Rs1,000 per 40 kg, while the government's procurement price had been fixed at Rs925 per 40 kg.
"Our centres are ready and equipped with machine and staff to take up the assignments. Three of them are in Sindh, one at Dera Allah Yar in Balochistan and eight are in Punjab," he added.
Mr Rizvi said the TCP would buy Grade Box III of cotton with staple length of 1-1/32" and 3.8 to 4.9 micronaire specification. In reply to a question, the TCP chief said that there were reports of good cotton crop this year, and if this month was passed without any report of pest or virus attack, the country would have about 11 million bales of cotton. He pointed out that Punjab had sown early maturing variety of cotton and, therefore, the province would have early crop this year. -APP
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