KARACHI, April 19: Dwindling arrival of phutti (seed cotton) from fields into ginneries reflects the size of crop below the government's revised estimate of 10 million bales. The latest phutti arrival figures released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners' Association (PCGA) show that the country has produced 9.770 million bales up to April 15, 2004.

As the current crop season (2003-04) is at the fag end and there was little hope of any improvement in phutti arrival, therefore, this may be taken as total and final output of cotton. Since the PCGA did not give last year's comparative data it was not possible to draw exact picture of the arrival over the corresponding period of last year.

The cotton production in Punjab up to April 15, 2004, stood at 7.641 million bales and in Sindh at 2.129 million bales. The textile mills purchased 8.512 million bales and private sector exporters 179,037 bales. With the expanded capacity and Balancing, Mordernization and Replacement (BMR) the industry estimated a total consumption of raw cotton to exceed 12 million bales.

"There may be a crisis like situation towards the end of the season that is July and August period and many small mills may have to close down till the arrival of new crop from September," a leading spinner said. The industrial groups are importing raw cotton to meet the shortfall but 80 per cent of Small and Medium sized units who are not in a position to get huge bank finances for import of cotton may have to pull down shutters, he added.