KARACHI: Cotton production, battered by heavy monsoon rain and floodwater, has plunged by more than 400,000 bales (24 per cent) this season compared to the same period a year ago.

According to a report issued by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners’ Association (PCGA) on Thursday, the country has so far produced 1.339 million bales this season compared to 1.762m bales a year earlier.

Punjab has been hit the hardest as cotton output in the province nearly halved to 444,563 bales from 810,316 bales last year.

Sindh’s output stood at 895,427 bales, a shortfall of nearly 6pc (129,530 bales) compared to 951,966 bales the preceding year.

By Sept 1 this season, the textile industry, which is badly suffering from quality crunch, purchased 1.029m bales as against 1.523m bales during the same period last year.

Cotton exporters, however, have lifted larger quantity of cotton at 92,420 bales this time around compared to 56,875 bales last season.

Due to slow off-take, ginners are holding larger quantity of unsold stocks at 217,880 bales as against 181,553 bales.

The number of operational ginning factories has also fallen in both the provinces, to 215 units from 231 in Punjab and to 157 from 175 in Sindh.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2015

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