KARACHI, Oct 20: Cotton exports during the current season may not hit the last year’s high mark of $139 million owing to steep decline in world prices because of an expected production glut and falling consumer demand.

World cotton prices have, since the beginning of the new cotton season from September 1, declined to 15-year low level of 30 cents per lb, which in turn, could well mean lower foreign exchange earnings despite a larger exportable surplus, exporters claim after calculating the difference between the last and current season’s selling prices.

“There is a difference of about 20 cents per lb between the two prices, which could well mean a sharp fall in export value in dollar terms of the same quantity in number of bales”, they say.

During the last season, an average export price per lb was about 47 cents, the highest being 53 cents, but in the recently floated international tenders, the TCP has accepted the bids slightly above 30 per cent.

Last season, the private sector exporters and the TCP have exported 0.679 million bales of lint cotton to about five dozen countries valued at $139 million.

“About 15 per cent appreciation in the value of the rupee against the dollar has almost made export of lint uncompetitive on the world markets and it not that easy to sell a commodity in a sellers market”, a leading exporters said.

The increase in freight rates and imposition of war risk charges since the beginning of Afghan war has further limited the export options and no one could precisely predict about the export prospects, they add.

There are reports of another bumper crop of over 10 million bales, which after meeting the local demand of the textile industry could mean an exportable surplus of a million bales.

Exporters fear the export proceeds may not touch the 1999-2000 total of $73 million earned through the export of half-a-million bales of lint cotton.

According to the official figures cotton exports during the first quarter of the current fiscal totalled only 16,000 bales, which earned a foreign exchange of $3.197 million at an average rate of 30 cents per lb.