Cotton production hits record-high of 14.38m bales

The country’s cotton production has made an all-time high level of 14.38 million bales on March 1, 2012, two months ahead of the end of the crop season 2011-12, by breaking the previous high record of 14.31 million bales in 2004-05

Cotton Picking in Pakistan.

The mills also broke record of purchase as they piled up more than 12.46 million bales out of total 14.38 million bales till March 1, 2012.

Fibre analyst Shakeel Ahmad said at the same time global cotton mill consumption is projected to increase by 4 percent to 24.3 million tonnes in 2012-13.

Ahmad said almost two months were left for termination of crop season 2011-12 and it seems the production would cross 16 million bales level.

He said during this period last year the production stood at 11.52 million bales, which translates to around 2.87 million bales more production till March 1, 2012.

During this period the private sector commercial exporters exported around 920,100 bales while total last year’s stocks stood at around 996,144 bales in the country.

The Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) had set target at 14.01 million bales for the 2011-12 crop season, and it later reviewed its target after torrential rains and flash floods in the cotton belt in Sindh and Punjab at 12.20 million bales.

During this period the country also imported around 900,000 bales of better quality from USA, India and Brazil for blending purpose.

The main importing countries of Pakistani lint were India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

The reasons for the more than anticipated target are the use of latest well researched BT cottonseed, proper crop related information to growers for usage of fertilizer besides appropriate water availability in major crop growing areas in Punjab and Sindh.

Though due to rains Sindh production stood at 2.65 million bales, around 26 percent decline in the target projection while production in Punjab stood at 11.72 million bales this crop season.

The agriculture departments in Sindh and Punjab also monitored the crop diseases timely and provided basic remedies for the cotton leaf curl virus (CLCV) and bollworm to farmers and growers, he added.

The country is in a position to export more than 1.40 million bales worth $210 million, as the domestic prices of lint are comparatively lower than the international price, he maintained.

According to International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), world production will exceed consumption again in 2012-13, leading to rising stocks. After a rebound of 40 percent to a record of 13 million tonnes in 2011-12, global cotton stocks could expand by 11 percent to 14.5 million tonnes in 2012-13.

This is equivalent to 60 percent of global mill use, the largest stocks-to-use ratio since the late 1990s.

The rebuilding of the Chinese national reserve by the end of 2011-12 might hold as much as a quarter of global stocks.

A seminar on ‘Cotton Price Volatility: Transparency of Cotton Supply and Use and Trade Policies at the World Bank’ underlined reasons for cotton price volatility, to encourage the collection and publication of timely, relevant and accurate statistics on cotton supply and use, to encourage standardisation of the reporting of cotton statistics, to place special emphasis on the responsibility of governments to collect and publish data on physical stocks, and to encourage transparency and predictability in government policies and programmes that affect the cotton sector.