KARACHI: The country produced 11.58 million bales during the cotton season 2017-18 which closed on May 1, against 2016-17 when 10.72m bales were produced till April 15, 2017. The previous cotton season was short by two weeks.

According to final cotton production figures released by Pakistan Cotton ginners’ Association (PCGA) on Thursday, Punjab produced 7.32m bales. Last season, the province produced 6.94m bales up to April 15, 2017.

Sindh performed better by producing 4.25m bales, substantially higher over the previous season’s cotton production which stood at 3.67m bales.

Textile mills during the extended cotton season 2017-18 also purchased larger quantity of cotton at 11.08m bales. Last season (2016-17), textile industry purchased 10.25m bales up to April 15, 2017. This indicates that textile industry heavily relied on local cotton and only imported lint to meet its finer count yarn production.

Ginners are presently holding unsold stocks of around 279,894 bales from cotton season 2017-18. Last season (2016-17) the ginners held unsold stocks of 265,597 bales up to April 15, 2017.

As the current season extended by a fortnight (April 15 to May 1), the flow of phutti during this period was recorded at 2,753 bales.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2018