ISLAMABAD: Pakistan may have lost up to two million cotton bales, or about 13 percent of its estimated crop, due to heavy monsoon rains during harvesting in major producing region Sindh, government and industry officials said on Friday.

Officials now estimate between 13 and 13.5 million bales of 170 kg (378.8 lb) each in the 2011/12 financial year against an expected bumper harvest of 15 million bales for the world's fourth largest cotton producer.

“According to initial reports the damage to cotton crops in Sindh is pretty massive... up to two million bales have been destroyed,” Agha Jan Akhtar, secretary of the Sindh Agriculture Department, told Reuters. Southern Sindh is Pakistan's biggest cotton growing province after central Punjab.

Cotton is Pakistan's main cash crop, contributing 1.4 percent to GDP, and a drop in output will likely make it difficult to achieve a 4.2 percent GDP growth target in the current financial year that started on July 1.

At least two industry officials put the losses at between 1.5 million bales and 2 million bales, after heavy September rains that the meteorological department forecasts to end within days.

Pakistan's monsoon flooding, and an announcement by top cotton consumer China that it would start stockpiling, helped boost cotton futures to a two-month high, with the U.S. December contract rising on Thursday almost 3 percent to close at $1.1363 per lb.

Pakistan's spot rates were also quoted higher at about 7,100 rupees ($81) per 40 kg on average in Sindh and Punjab early on Friday on concerns over supplies, Karachi-based trader Naseem Usman said. It traded around 5,700 rupees early last week.

Last year, the cotton output fell to 11.70 million bales against a target of 14 million bales due to 2010's devastating floods. The losses in the cotton crop were among the reasons Pakistan's economic growth that year slipped to 2.4 percent from the original target of 4.5 percent.

In addition to being a leading cotton producer, Pakistan must often import bales to feed its textile industry, which accounts for more than 50 percent of exports.

Pakistan imported nearly two million bales to meet domestic demand in the 2010/11 financial year.

Annual consumption has fluctuated between 14 million bales and 16 million bales but utilisation has fallen in recent years due to a chronic energy crisis that has forced the industry to work below capacity.

With no bar on exports, growers and exporters also sell cotton in the international market. About 60,000 bales were sold up to Aug. 23 from the previous and the new crop.

Despite last year's crop losses, the value of Pakistan's textile exports in 2010/11 rose 35 percent to $13.80 billion from $10.22 billion the previous year, mainly because of globally high cotton prices, analysts say.