LAHORE: Pakistan has exported at least 125,000 cotton bales this season and the quantum is set to improve further during the current crop season.

The cotton consignments are being destined for China, Vietnam and Indonesia and a significant point is that all these export deals have been clinched by only one cotton ginner from Sindh, Dr Jasso Mal, Dawn has learnt.

It is hoped that a similar quantity of cotton bales will be exported during the remaining period of the season.

Cotton exports could not enter six digits since 2017-18 when the exports stood at 207,424 bales.

The country exported just 4,900 bales in 2022-23, 16,000 bales in 2021-22 and 70,200 bales in 2020-21.

Ginners say a better quality of lint and bullish international markets are attracting foreign buyers towards Pakistani cotton.

Cotton Ginners Forum Chairman Ihsanul Haq says that the lack of rains traditional in most of the cotton growing areas helped to improve the crop quality and this was supported by a record devaluation of the rupee making the local cotton cheaper on the world markets.

He says that the cotton exports may have set a record had there not been a drop in the lint yield in Punjab because of a severe whitefly attack, while there were also negative impacts of the environmental pollution.

He urges the government to desist from levying heavy taxes on the textile sector under pressure from the International Monetary Fund as the sector is already reeling under unprecedented gas and electricity tariffs as well as mark-up rates.

He claims that around 60pc of textile mills in the country have become dysfunctional because of the issues and it is feared that the local industry will fail to consume even nine million bales of cotton.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2023