MULTAN, April 12: Pakistan cotton ginners association has urged the government to turn down all efforts of some 'vested interests' who want to reopen hedge trading in cotton market of the country.

In a letter addressed to the president of Pakistan and sent to all the concerned ministries and All Pakistan textile mills association, PCGA chairman Seth Jeth Anand claimed that hedge in cotton trading would adversely affect all the three major partners-growers, ginners and textile millers -of cotton business in the country.

He said more than 90 per cent of the farmers in the country had landholdings as small as under the subsistence level of 12.5 acres. He said neither the small growers nor the ginners could afford market fluctuations as the result of speculative buying.

"Hedge trading will increase financial woes of both farmers and ginners besides affecting the overall productivity in the cotton sector," he asserted.

To further augment his disagreement to the hedge trading, PCGA chairman said that the method was only in vogue in the form of New York Futures (NYF) in America while in rest of the cotton world it could not prove successful.

He reminded that the NYF had yet to work because America exported almost 60 per cent of its cotton production. "While in Pakistan the spinning and textile sector has to import more than 1m bales every year as the domestic production could not meet its demand of about 11.5m bales," he added.

Seth Anand said that despite all the trade liberalization the cotton hedge trading in Mumbai (India) had failed to click and thus it had to be closed down. He expressed the hope that the government would not allow hedge in the Islamic republic of Pakistan for being based on gambling.