MULTAN, Jan 19: Only 400,000 bales of cotton reached ginneries across the country during the first fortnight of the current month as against 570,000 that arrived in the corresponding period last year.

According to the figures released by Pakistan Cotton Ginners’ Association (PCGA) here late Saturday night, a total of 9.19m bales of cotton had arrived in ginneries by Jan 15, 9.11 per cent more than the 8.42m bales that arrived up to this date last year.

However, the latest PCGA report was a blow to speculations about a bumper crop, which arose on Jan 3 when the association showed an increase of 11.25 per cent in the number of bales that had arrived in ginneries by Dec 31 as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

Another factor that strengthened these speculations was the arrival of over two million bales in ginneries in the month of December, which were 477,000 bales more than the cotton arrivals during Dec 2001.

Some market analysts were of the view that December arrivals should not have raised expectations of a bumper cotton crops. The growers this year disposed of their produce in time because of the relatively better prices for Phutti (seed cotton).

Not only the arrival of cotton has been short by 116,027 bales in the first fortnight of the current month as compared to the same period last year, the number of operational ginneries at present is also much less. Only 657 ginning factories are currently in operation as compared to 940 last year. “This also shows that not much crop would reach ginneries during the rest of the season,” an analyst remarked.

It may be added here that the official target of cotton production for the year 2002-03 is 10.5m bales which means that another 1.4m are needed to meet it. When contacted, PCGA vice-chairman Sheikh Farooq estimated the crop size as “hardly 10m bales”.

Of the bales arrived so far, 7.2m have been sold, with the textile sector carrying away the major chunk (7.15m bales). Exporters bought only 83,476 bales while the Trading Corporation of Pakistan did not procure even a single bale owing to the price of Phutti, which was well above the corporation’s procurement price of Rs800 per 40kg. — Correspondent