MULTAN, Oct 25: The Pakistan Cotton Ginners’ Association (PCGA) announced on Saturday to stop all kinds of trade activities in cotton and lint till Oct 30 in protest against unscheduled and hours-long loadshedding.

Speaking at a press conference here on Saturday at the PCGA House, central executive committee members Shehzad Ali Khan, Malik Talat Sohail and Major Akhtar said that member ginning factories of the PCGA were suspending all kinds of trade activities from Oct 25 till Oct 30 in the first phase.

They said that unannounced power breakdowns were causing losses to the industry and they have decided to close down their business activities to pressure the government to redress their grievances by exempting the ginneries of load-shedding during the peak season so that cotton could be ginned immediately.

They said around 907,007 bales were in the backlog till Saturday as compared to last year’s backlog of 565,000 bales while the current demand of textile sector stood at 15.5 million bales this year.

They said that on the one hand ginning factories were facing huge loses due to the load-shedding, and on other, banks were reluctant to give loans to ginners.

They said that farmers were getting only Rs1,600 for a maund, but now the purchase price has been reduced to Rs1,100 to Rs1,200 per maund.

They said that a general body meeting of the PCGA would be held on Oct 30 and if the government failed to end load-shedding, ginneries would go on an indefinite strike. Talking to Dawn, former chairman of PCGA Rasheed Khan said that the government should ask the TCP to start purchase of cotton immediately to overcome on the rapid fall in cotton prices. Pakistan produced nearly 13 million bales last year and agricultural experts see the new crop closer to 10 million bales this year.

The decision to suspend the purchase of cotton was taken in a meeting of PCGA held here on Saturday, presided over by member central executive committee Malik Talat Sohail, adds APP.

Talking to newsmen, Talat Sohail said that cotton ginning industry is passing through a critical phase of its history as banks were reluctant to issue loans, power outage has further compounded the problems, making the ginners unable to honour their business agreements.

He disclosed that about 1.5 million bales of cotton were lying unsold at cotton factories and ginners were unable to pay price of phutti to farmers.

He warned that falling prices of cotton may affect sowing of wheat. He urged upon the government to announce support price for cotton to save this industry.

Maj (Retd) Akhtar Abbas, a member of PCGA committee, observed that farmers were being exploited as input cost of cotton is more than its existing trend of sale.

He said that textile sector is also reluctant to purchase bales on pretext of loadshedding and gas supply problems.