LAHORE: The Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) on Wednesday reported that the country produced 8.397 million bales in 2023-24, a 71 per cent increase over the preceding year.

However, the output fell short by a record 3.873m bales or 32pc against the target fixed for the year.

The PCGA said cotton production in Punjab was 4.282m bales while in Sindh it was 4.115m bales. District-wise, the highest cotton production has been reported from Sanghar (Sindh), which is 1.695m bales, while the lowest output was 5,240 bales in the Pakpattan district of Punjab.

Of the total output, according to the report, textile mills bought 8.043m bales from ginning factories, while exporters bought 2.93m bales and 60,500 bales are still available with the ginning factories.

Cotton Ginners Forum chairman Ihsanul Haq says that cotton production in Sindh is surprisingly 114,000 bales more than the target. At the same time, production in Punjab has decreased extraordinarily, mainly due to adverse weather conditions and whitefly cotton. “It has been an unusual attack on the crop.”

He says that due to heavy taxes imposed on the ginning and textile industry, some factories and textile mills across the country did “off-the-record” trade in cotton during the year. He claims that the volume of this “off-the-record” trade amounts to at least two million bales, which is why the total domestic production of cotton is considered to be around 10.5 million bales.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2024