The decline is attributed to last year’s monsoon’s flash floods and heavy rains, which devastated a sizable amount of agricultural land, particularly in Sindh and Balochistan provinces.
Due to the lower production, Pakistan’s textile industry will need to import roughly 10 million bales in order to meet its 15 million bale annual demand.
The mill consumption fell to 8.8 million bales, the lowest level in more than 20 years, as a result of the textile industry’s difficulties with import financing. Textile mills have also bought 4,605,449 bales from the local market while agreeing to import 5.5 million bales.
The mills, on the other hand, had purchased 7,332,000 bales from the domestic market the previous year. Additionally, ginners still have 301,720 bales in their stocks, as opposed to 93,833 bales at this time last year.
Pakistan’s cotton export has also suffered, with only 4,900 bales of white lint exported this year, a 69% decrease from the previous year’s figure of 11,000 bales. The primary destinations for Pakistan’s raw cotton are the Philippines, Italy, Bangladesh, Greece, and France.
Punjab registered a 32% year-on-year decline in output, producing 3,033,050 bales this season compared to 3,928,690 bales last season. Meanwhile, Sindh reported a 46% year-on-year drop in yield, with lint production in the province this year standing at 1,879,019 bales compared to 3,513,143 bales last year.
Pakistan’s cotton output reached a peak of 14.1 million bales in 2004-05, but has since declined to 7 million bales in 2020-21 and about 9.45 million bales in 2021-22 due to the country’s per-acre yield being half that of other countries in the region.
At a recent meeting, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) approved Rs8,500 per 40kg as the intervention price to address the ongoing decline in cotton production and acreage.
After holding consultations with all parties, including provincial governments, growers, and cotton associations, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research submitted the proposal to entice growers towards the crop.
The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association and other interested parties called for the pegging of the cotton intervention price to the import parity price.
As a result, the ECC created a cotton price review committee that has the power to assess market prices and suggest interventions every two weeks.
