Cotton arrivals plunge to 4.6m bales

Pakistan records over 4.6 million bales of cotton production during the calendar year 2022 against more than 7.3m bales produced during the previous year, a massive shortfall of 37.23 per cent. Market observers put heavy monsoon rains and river floods, which washed away standing crops, particularly in the cotton belts of Sindh and Punjab, as the main reason behind the decline in cotton yield. Both provinces could not also meet the cotton sowing target as the crop had been planted only on 2.01m hectares against the target of 2.53m hectares this season. The data released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) on Tuesday revealed that 4,612,687 cotton bales arrived by Jan 1, 2023, while the figure stood at 7,312,537 bales on Jan 1, 2022. The white lint output even fell short by 0.2m bales than the estimates of 4.8m bales made by the industry a month ago.