Interviews
Mood upbeat in cotton industry
12 Feb '09
2 min read
There are encouraging signs emanating from the cotton and textile sector in Pakistan. Ginners and traders are selling a record number of bales in the ongoing new cotton season, which in turn is giving the much needed confidence to ginners and farmers of the country.
This change in mood, which seemed despondent till a few weeks ago, has come about, thanks to the market intervention of the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP), which has procured cotton from the markets in good quantities in the last few weeks.
Fibre2fashion spoke to Mr Gulam Rabbani, Columnist, Well-known cotton trader and a Director on the board of the Karachi Cotton Association to get an idea of the upbeat mood in the cotton sector and the reasons for the same.
Mr Rabbani said, “Traditionally, Pakistan is distributed in to two major parts when we talk in terms of the agriculture sector; Sindh and Punjab. Sindh produces around 25 percent of the cotton in the country while that of Punjab varies from 75 percent to 80 percent”.
He added, “This year Sindh produced around 2.9 million bales while that of Punjab stands at 7.8 million bales up to 31st January 2009. Ginning factories are still operating and we estimate that around half a million bales will still arrive in the current month of February.
The ginning capacity of units varies from 15,000-65,000 bales in a cotton season and for the first time in history of Pakistan, Al Basit Cotton Ginning factory in Shehdadpur; Sindh achieved the highest mark of ginning 100,000 bales in a single season.”
Commenting on the situation in the future of the white gold, he said, “Things are moving very smoothly now and we are reaching the completion of the cotton season. Cotton crop is expected to reach 11 million bales, but we still expect to run short by 2.5 million bales”.
He was very categorical when he said, “We had strongly opposed the estimates of 14.1 million bales, projected by the government in August 2008 and our projection of 11.5 million bales has come out right”.
This change in mood, which seemed despondent till a few weeks ago, has come about, thanks to the market intervention of the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP), which has procured cotton from the markets in good quantities in the last few weeks.
Fibre2fashion spoke to Mr Gulam Rabbani, Columnist, Well-known cotton trader and a Director on the board of the Karachi Cotton Association to get an idea of the upbeat mood in the cotton sector and the reasons for the same.
Mr Rabbani said, “Traditionally, Pakistan is distributed in to two major parts when we talk in terms of the agriculture sector; Sindh and Punjab. Sindh produces around 25 percent of the cotton in the country while that of Punjab varies from 75 percent to 80 percent”.
He added, “This year Sindh produced around 2.9 million bales while that of Punjab stands at 7.8 million bales up to 31st January 2009. Ginning factories are still operating and we estimate that around half a million bales will still arrive in the current month of February.
The ginning capacity of units varies from 15,000-65,000 bales in a cotton season and for the first time in history of Pakistan, Al Basit Cotton Ginning factory in Shehdadpur; Sindh achieved the highest mark of ginning 100,000 bales in a single season.”
Commenting on the situation in the future of the white gold, he said, “Things are moving very smoothly now and we are reaching the completion of the cotton season. Cotton crop is expected to reach 11 million bales, but we still expect to run short by 2.5 million bales”.
He was very categorical when he said, “We had strongly opposed the estimates of 14.1 million bales, projected by the government in August 2008 and our projection of 11.5 million bales has come out right”.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India
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