Owing to the floods, which recently occurred in Pakistan, cotton output of the country has shrunk extensively, from the estimates made for 2010-11 season.
Floods have damaged around 2.25 million bales of cotton, informed industry officials. The country will need to import at least four million cotton bales to offset this loss.
Crop cultivated on around 524,000 hectares out of 3.2 million hectares in the key cotton-producing areas of central Punjab and southern Sindh provinces have been damaged due to floods.
Now, it has been estimated that the overall cotton production will stand at 11.6 million bales, each of 170 kg, against government's target of 14 million bales.
This year till the end of June, the country imported 2 million bales of cotton, despite an output of 12.76 million bales.
Cotton growers and exporters of the country sell their output in global markets to get better price. In the year 2009-10, around 800,000 bales were sold.