Cotton Arrivals Up By 83% to 6.8 Million Bales in October

Pakistan’s Cotton Arrivals have reached 6.79 million bales till October 31, 2023, reporting an 83.2 percent increase from 3.708 million bales during the same period last year. Sindh has interestingly contributed the major share (56 percent) with total arrivals clocking at 3.79 million bales up a massive 132 percent from last year’s figures while Punjab’s arrivals clocked at nearly 3 million bales, recording an increase of 44.5 percent from SPLY. Arrivals in Balochistan stood at 163,300 bales also reporting a notable rise of 112 percent. Traders and exporters have bought 279,026 bales while more than 5.8 million bales have been sold to textile mills. Around 0.71 million bales unsold are present in stock and 594 ginning factories are operational in total. Sindh’s Cotton Arrivals were led by Hyderabad (1.63 million bales), Mirpur Khas (490,273 million bales), Sanghar (317,900 million bales), Nawabshah (307,403) and Naushero Feroz (215,700). Punjab’s Cotton arrivals were led  Multan (688,760 bales), Lodhran (405,112 bales), Khanewal (372,180 bales), Muzaffargarh (259,982 bales) and Dera Ghazi Khan (201,575 bales). The Federal Committee of Agriculture (FCA) recently cut the annual production target to 11.7 million bales while independent analysts expect the final production to clock at 9-10 million bales. While it’s significantly higher than last year’s historically low and flood-ridden production of 4.9 million bales, it is still far behind the production target of 12.4 million bales set at the commencement of the season. According to analysts, the interesting or rather dismal trend has been Punjab’s Cotton arrivals remaining significantly lower than Sindh despite contributing more than two-thirds of Cotton production of 8.3 million bales during 2021-22.  The prime reason is said to be Sindh’s Cotton being able to better adjust to the need for earlier sowing (Feb-Mar) that protects the crop from floods, whiteflies, and other pest attacks which have been responsible for the decline in Cotton production.