MULTAN, Jan 26: Establishment of a cotton advisory cell in Trading Corporation of Pakistan is under consideration to strengthen its role in the market.

This was stated by the TCP chairman, Syed Masood Alam Rizvi, while addressing the central executive committee meeting of the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association here on Monday.

Mr Rizvi said that the corporation had already been playing an important role in the cotton market as an alternative buyer not allowing the prices of cotton in the domestic market to fall from a certain level. He underlined the need of a coordinated effort of TCP and PCGA to ensure contamination-free bales of cotton for the international market.

He said to achieve this goal the government would cooperate with the ginners to set up laboratories at the ginneries for the grading of lint cotton. He said the government would also sponsor a visit of PCGA delegation to India and Turkey so that the ginners could see the quality of cotton being ginned in these countries and then put in all efforts to modernize their factories back home.

PCGA chairman Seth Jaitha Nand Kohistani urged the TCP chairman to remain 'effectively' in the market as the alternative cotton buyer in order to check the by and large single buyer monopoly of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association. Other top TCP and federal agriculture department officials were also present in the meeting.

Meanwhile, a PCGA spokesman has contradicted a statement attributed to the state minister for food, agriculture and livestock, Sikander Hayat Bosan, in a section of press that majority of the ginning factories in the country are defaulters of the sales tax department.

He said the PCGA and the ST department had formed a joint reconciliatory committee which held its meeting on every Monday and then sent a report to the member ST of the Central Board of Revenue about the latest position. Matters between PCGA and ST department were resolved amicably and the ginning sector was the largest source of revenue viz-a-viz sales tax collection in the country, he claimed.