Pakistan has allowed the import of long staple cotton through land route from India, said a commerce ministry notification on Monday. The notification did not specify any quantity of cotton to be imported by the private sector through land route.
This has been the long standing demand of the textile industry as the local spinning capacity has reached 16 million bales, while the cotton production has been persistently on the decline in the last and current financial years after a record 14.4 million bales output in 2004-05.
An official said the textile industry had been seeking the early opening up of Wagah as the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) had put in place quarantine arrangement at the Wagah entry point.
The cotton output decreased to 12.8 million bales in 2005-06 and it further went down to 12.5 million bales this year. For the last several years, Pakistan has opened the policy for import and export of cotton. Cotton import from India is allowed under the Import Policy, 2006-07, however, due to lack of infrastructure regarding the Plant Quarantine Rules, 1967 on border crossing, it has only been imported through Karachi port, said an official in the ministry of textile industry.
In a summary, moved by the ministry of textile industry to Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, it was said that in the present scenario of stiff competition the government should allow the import of cotton through land route at the entry points on both the eastern as well as the western border at the earliest, according to the official.
The official said this summary was approved by the ECC and the notification of allowing import through Wagah might be the first step towards the possible permission of cotton import through land route from Central Asian Republics (CARs). However, Minfal will require putting in place quarantine apparatus on border crossings on the western border with Afghanistan and Iran.
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