July’s Cotton Output
July’s Cotton Output -Pakistan’s cotton sector is encountering a promising resurgence as cultivators deliver 1.428 million bales of cotton to processing ginning plants, fostering optimism that the nation might exceed the 10 million bales threshold for the first time in the past five years.
As per the most recent report from the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association, the deliveries received by August 1, 2023, exhibited an impressive 66.5 percent year-on-year surge.
The Punjab region observed an astonishing 95 percent escalation in cotton arrivals in contrast to the prior year, contributing 388,568 bales to the comprehensive output. Similarly, Sindh documented a noteworthy 57.8 percent upswing in cotton arrivals, appending 1.04 million bales to the overall national count.
The vital cotton industry, crucial to Pakistan’s economic stability, has encountered obstacles in elevating output in recent periods as cultivators transitioned to alternative plants. Consequently, the nation grappled with fulfilling the substantial request from fabric manufacturers, approximated at 16 million bales.
To bridge the gap between supply and demand, fabric exporters were obliged to buy cotton from overseas, resulting in a notable outflow of foreign currency totaling $4 billion in the fiscal year 2023-24. This was necessary to sustain export gains of roughly $25 billion.
At present, the country’s mean cotton production stands at 10 to 12 million bales per year, falling short of the ambitious goal of 20 million bales. The prior year’s disastrous floods worsened the predicament, causing the weakest harvest in about four decades. Only 4.9 million bales were cultivated during the 2022-23 planting season, a sharp contrast to the 7.44 million bales reaped in the previous season.
In an attempt to reverse this trajectory, Pakistan has established a cotton cultivation aim of 12.77 million bales for the ongoing year, cultivating around 6.834 million acres of land nationwide. Farmer groups emphasize the significance of well-proportioned fertilizer application to enhance yield per acre, particularly for cotton, wheat, rice, sugarcane, and maize.
Cotton output in Pakistan has experienced a 65% decline, plummeting from 14 million bales during 2013-14 to 4.9 million bales in the previous year. To fulfill the demands of the industry and maintain export profits, the nation plans to allocate $4 billion towards cotton imports.
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Restoring the cotton sector’s vitality is pivotal, not solely for the textile business which relies on cotton as its primary resource, but also for the potential of this valuable export asset to generate significant foreign exchange.