Cotton prices in the Lake Victoria zone have soared up by 33 percent, to Tshs 800 (US 0.56 cents) from Tshs 600 (0.42 cents) per kg on account of a stiff competition for fibre in both, domestic as well as international market.
According to an expert, Lake Victoria (western) cotton growing area including Mwanza, Shinyanga and Mara regions have witnessed increased competition for cotton. Such an increased competition in western cotton growing region and the augmented cotton prices in international market played vital role in cotton prices flaring up in Tanzania, he added.
It has been speculated that these prices may show further increases as Pakistan, which is one of the major cotton growers of the world, suffered from floods recently. These worst floods have mostly affected the cotton growing regions of Pakistan, which is expected to be down by a huge volume.
Price of one kg cotton seed is Tshs 800 (0.56 cents) and is still rising up. Cotton ginneries who intended to purchase around 30 million kg cotton seeds during the current season, could buy only eight million seeds by last weekend.
Last week, over 30 cotton buying companies bought around 113 million kg of cotton. Aiming to improve country's cotton production capacity to 1,500,000 bales by the year 2015, Tanzania, in recent years, has introduced a special program.
Tanzania Gatsby Trust (TGT) allocated US $7.2 million for the period 2008 to 2010, to execute cotton and textile development program, which will help cotton harvest to meet the target. This program will prove helpful for improving productivity of cotton, by the year 2015, to 1,500 per hectare from 750 kg per hectare, currently.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India
-Ltd..jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Thermore (Far East) Ltd.")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Limited (TSllC Ltd)")
.jpg?tr=w-120,h-60,c-at_max,cm-pad_resize,bg-ffffff "Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF)")
