LAHORE: Cotton arrivals in the local market dropped by 23.69 per cent to 2.93 million bales between June and October this year as compared with the data for the same period last year.

The data released by the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) on Monday showed that 2,936,153 bales reached the market by Oct 1 against 3,846,463 bales in the same period last year.

The country harvested the best cotton crop in 2014-15 when it achieved around 15 million bales of white lint.

It could not achieve the cotton sowing target for the 2022-23 season as against the target of 2.53 million hectares cotton could be cultivated only on an area of 2.01m hectares, around 20pc short of the target. However, the acreage was around 7.1pc more than the last year.

Market players blame the heavy monsoon rains in the cotton belt of south Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan for the drop in cotton yield.

The worst year in terms of cotton yield in Pakistan during the last decade was the 2020-21 season when by October only 1.907m bales had been brought to the local market.

In the crop year 2016-17, the country had produced 2.645m bales by October.

Of the 2.93m bales so far traded in the local cotton market during the ongoing season, the textile industry bought 2,319,003 bales, while 4,900 bales were exported.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2022