MULTAN, Sept 24: State Minister for Food, Agricultural and Livestock Sikandar Hayat Bosan has urged the cotton growers and ginners to keep in view the higher international prices while selling their produce.

In a statement issued here on Wednesday, the minister said that this year cotton prices in the international market were showing an upward trend owing to 3.2 per cent less production than the commodity’s global demand.

He said the estimated cotton production of the world this year had been 94.4 million bales against the demand of 97.4 million bales.

Therefore, he said, the B index cotton in the New York futures was fetching a price of about 64.5 to 65.2 cents per pound. At the same time, the global opening stocks were 18 per cent less than that of the previous year.

He observed that the prices of both cotton seed (phutti) and cotton lint in the domestic market though were better than the previous year, they were still lagging behind the international parity price.

To get better price of their output both growers and ginners should also pay attention to the quality. He also urged the spinners to pay premium price to better quality cotton so as to encourage growers and ginners for the supply of good quality cotton.

The cotton crop, he said, was now passing through a crucial stage both in upper Sindh and cotton belt of the Punjab in the wake of infestation of various bollworms in different areas.

Directing provincial agriculture departments and cotton growers to take appropriate measures to fight the bollworm menace, he urged the pesticides firms to influx their stocks in the areas of pest attack to meet the shortage of pesticides.

He also stressed upon cotton market stakeholders to abstain from self-assessment of the crop size. They should wait for the standing committee meeting on cotton crop assessment of the Pakistan central cotton committee to be convened shortly to estimate the crop size, he added.