Cotton output totals 8.5m bales on Sindh’s record contribution
Domestic cotton production will remain drastically lower than projected for the crop year 2023-24 as the total output will be hardly 8.5 million bales against the initial target of 12.8m, a loss of 4.3m bales, reveals the data released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association on Wednesday. The PCGA data up to Dec 31 shows that 8.17m bales of cotton have reached the ginning factories across the country which is higher by 3.5m bales over 4.6m bales produced in the same period last year. Ginners say that hardly 0.5m more bales may be produced during the rest of the crop year. However, the output so far is 77 per cent more than the total production of the previous year. Province-wise data shows that 4.79m bales arrived in the ginning factories of Punjab during the period, which is 48pc more than the previous year but about 4.0m bales less than the initial allocated target. In Sindh, 4.49m bales arrived in the ginning units, which is a record 121pc more than last year. Of the total output, textile mills bought 7.3m bales and 0.565m bales are lying with the ginners, and so far 0.175m bales have been exported mostly to Indonesia and Vietnam.