KARACHI: The country is likely to achieve the cotton production target of 13 million bales this season, latest figures released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) show.

The country produced 5.984m cotton bales by Oct 15, up 36.79 per cent from the output recorded in the corresponding period of last year.

Following a crop failure in the last two consecutive seasons, the cotton production is likely to be 3m bales higher this year.

Both Sindh and Punjab recorded higher year-on-year cotton production with the former producing 534,687 more bales. The output of Punjab was 1.07m more bales up to Oct 15.

Punjab’s cotton production grew 54.89pc to 3.032m bales this year. Sindh produced 2.951m bales, showing a growth of 22.12pc year-on-year.

The fortnightly flow of phutti from cotton fields to ginneries remained 1.993m bales against 1.729m bales last year.

As for consumption, spinners purchased 4.232m bales against 3.144m bales that they lifted in the corresponding period last year.

Exporters purchased 180,602 bales compared to 95,490 bales a year ago.

Ginners are also holding unsold cotton stocks of 1.571m bales compared to 1.135m bales last year.

In total 979 ginning factories are currently operating in Sindh and Punjab.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2017