February 4, 2006	Saturday	Muharram 5, 1427

KARACHI, Feb 3: Despite the fact that the flow of phutti (seed cotton) from farms to ginneries during the last fortnight (Jan 15 to Feb 1, 2006) slightly improved, the overall production continues to be short by 14.26 per cent over the corresponding period last year.

According to official figures issued here on Friday, phutti arrivals during the period under review increased by 102,047 bales at 356,779 as compared to 254,732 bales received by ginneries during the same period last year.

However, the shortfall of around 2.5 million bales against spinners’ consumption of around 15 million bales may even widen owing to a rising trend in polyester staple fibre rates in the domestic market.

It is interesting to note that the offtake of new cotton crop by spinners was also lagging behind at 9.669 million bales as compared to the same period last year when mills purchased around 10.535 million bales.

Nevertheless, higher stocks of unsold cotton lying with ginners could well convey the message that the mills are cautiously moving and are not in a hurry to pile up their stocks for a longer period. This could be to keep prices under pressure and not to flare up the market which would ultimately damage their interest, cotton analysts told Dawn.

Higher prices of man-made fibre due to frequently rising POL prices in the world market would create a higher demand for cotton, as the mills would prefer to run their spinning industry on less costlier raw material, he added.

Total cotton production up to February 1, 2006 stood short by 1.998 million bales at 12.017 million as against 14.016 million bales produced last year in the same period.

Both the cotton producing provinces — Sindh and Punjab — were short by 14.81 and 14.12 per cent, respectively, during this period (Jan 15 to Feb 1, 2006), which indicated that the growers of these provinces faced identical problems.

Sindh recorded a production of 2.480m bales compared to 2.911m bales produced in the corresponding period last year. The Punjab produced 9.537m bales as against 11.104m bales.

The private sector exporters lifted a nominal quantity of 70,400 bales as against 491,537 bales in the same period last year. The ginners are holding 2.277 million bales compared to 1.422 million bales in the same period last year.

Since the third and last picking was entering last stages, there was a little possibility that the crop may touch 12.50 million bales. Even a lesser number of ginning units is presently operating in both the provinces. In Punjab, 575 units are presently operating as against 822 last year and in Sindh, 56 ginning units are active compared to 198 in the same period last year.