KARACHI (February 18 2004): Cotton production has come close to last year's figures raising hopes for the country to achieve the export target of 12.1 billion dollars, with a big boost from the textile industry.

The country's total cotton production has come to 9.389 million bales, compared to 9.574 million bales of last year, showing a shortfall of 1.93 percent, said the fortnightly report of Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association on Tuesday.

Punjab performed well, like previous year, and its production reached 7.401 million bales recording an increase of 2.53 percent over similar period previous year.

Sindh fell short by 8.89 percent to fetch only 1.988 million bales compared to 2.182 million bales during similar period last year.

Cotton experts said that the country requires additional 2 million bales to meet the consumption. So far textile millers have imported 1.2 million bales.

"The country might get a production of 9.6 or 9.7 million bales by the end of the season, while the arrivals will continue till mid-March," said a ginner.

The arrivals of cotton were continuing only in upper Sindh, while in Punjab arrivals continued from various part of the province.

Pakistan has so far exported 137,000 bales of which 127,000 bales have already been shipped.

The rest 10,000 bales cotton would be shipped by the end of this month.

Textile exports were up by 13 percent in last seven months, July, 2003-January, 2004, compared to similar period previous year.

"If the cotton production comes close to 10 million bales, the country will certainly reach the export target," said a spinner in Karachi.

Courtesy Business Recorder