MULTAN – As many as 10.456 million bales of seed cotton (phutti) reached ginneries across Pakistan till Jan 15, 2019, registering a shortfall of 7.74pc compared with the corresponding period of last year. Out of total arrivals, over 10.358m (10,358,696) bales have undergone the ginning process, says a fortnightly report of PCGA, issued here on Friday. Arrivals in Punjab were recorded at over 6.324 million (6,324,540) bales, showing a 10.79pc shortfall, and over 4 million (4,132,385) bales in Sindh, registering 2.66 per cent shortfall compared to corresponding period of the last year.
Total sold out bales were recorded at over 8.8m (8,810,641) bales including over 8m (8,709,741) bales, bought by textile mills and another 100,900 bales, purchased by exporters. Around 1.646m (1,646,284) bales were still lying with the ginneries as unsold stock. Sanghar district of Sindh continued to remain on top with cotton arrival figures of over 1.28m (1,283,777) bales, while Rahimyar Khan secured second berth with arrival figure of 1.16m (1,163,074) bales.
The report does not include cotton figures from districts of Kasur, and Sargodha.
As many as 225 ginning factories are now operational in the country including 190 in Punjab and 35 in Sindh.