LAHORE: Cotton arrivals slowed down in the last fortnight after remaining steady during the last three fortnights in the local market, dampening hopes for crossing the six million bales of production mark.

As per data shared by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) on Friday, at least 5.191m bales reached the ginning factories up till Nov 30, 2024 across the country. The figure is 33pc less than the output achieved by the same period last season.

At least 2.46m bales arrived at ginning units in Punjab and 2.73m bales in Sindh, depicting a fall of 34pc and 32pc, respectively, from the production for the same period of the previous year.

According to the report, textile mills have purchased 4.472m bales from ginning factories while 2,000 bales have been exported abroad, which is 33 and a record 86pc less than the same period of the previous year, respectively.

There are still 0.677m bales available for sale with the ginning factories across the country.

The highest cotton arrival has been reported from Sanghar district of Sindh, which is equal to 1.238m bales, the main reason being that due to the lack of ginning factories in major coastal Sindh towns like Badin, Thatta, Mirpur Sakro, Umerkot, etc, the cotton produced in these areas is transported to Sanghar for ginning purposes. It is followed by 0.621m bales in Bahawalnagar district, 0.404m bales in Bahawalpur and 0.340m bales in Rahim Yar Khan districts of Punjab.

Sundas Ayub, Pakistan Cotton Brokers Association secretary, says the PCGA’s arrival figures of 5.19m bales with fortnightly flow of 296,777 bales reveals that the cotton season 2024-25 is expected to end up around 5.5m bales.

“Lackluster situation prevails over cotton market despite low production due to multiple reasons. Demand has squeezed drastically because of closure of a number of textile units owing to government policies. Therefore, the mills are facing acute financial crunch leading to cotton business unrest.”

She says that quality issues have also diverted the attention of buyers from local purchase to imported cotton, while import of yarn has pushed the market to slackness. However, the ginners holding somewhat better quality are expecting some recovery in cotton business in January 2025.

Ihsanul Haq, the Cotton Ginners Forum chairman, notes that the arrival of cotton in four districts of Punjab – Pakpattan, Okara, Kasur and Sargodha – is zero this year, while no district of the country reported more arrival of cotton this year as compared to the last year.

He laments that in Multan, once a major cotton-producing district of Pakistan, only 46,700 bales of cotton have been harvested till Nov 30, 16,000 in Rajanpur, 13,000 in Faisalabad while only 14,000 bales were harvested in Bhakkar this year, mainly due to the increasing cultivation of sugarcane. He expects that the total cotton production in Pakistan this year is likely to be 5.5-5.6m bales.

However, Karachi Cotton Brokers Forum’s Naseem Usman hopes that the local cotton production this season will remain 5.8m bales, and this excludes the undocumented ginned cotton. To meet its need, the textile industry will require import of at least 5m bales while it has so far signed import agreements for 3.5m bales.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2024