Cotton production target likely to be 12.5 million bales this year

ANWAR KHAN

KARACHI: Pakistan now expects to produce about 12.5 million cotton bales this year, as its production target has scaled down by 2.5 million bales due to heavy rains and floods which caused huge damages to crops in Sindh, said Secretary Textile Industry, Shahid Rasheed on Friday.

"Pakistan is likely to import about 1.5 million cotton bales to meet the industry needs while the country could also export about one million bales," he told a meeting held with the representatives of value-added textile associations at PHMA House. Federal Textile Minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin also attended the meeting. The textile secretary said that Punjab is expected to produce over 10 million cotton bales this year, but the over all production target is unlikely to be met as floods in Sindh have damaged about 60 percent of the expected yield of cotton crop. "Some 12.5 million cotton bales are now expected from both provinces," he added.

He said the leaf virus, which had ruined about 40 percent of cotton crop last year, fortunately did not appear this year to cause any damage to the crops.

He pointed out that import of quality cotton bales was always in demand in Pakistan and the country was likely to import about 1.5 million bales to meet the industry's requirements.

The textile minister, whom the industrialists had invited to have a discussion on the issues of the textile sector, could not appear well-prepared to reply the pinching questions posed to him during the meeting. However, the textile secretary recurrently intervened to answer the textile industrialists' questions.

The minister also assured the industry's representatives of arranging their meeting with the Prime Minister on Oct 12.

He pledged to release Rs 19 billion of drawback levies, which the government had collected under the textile policy to the exporters. He said the textile sector's issues were of genuine nature and the demands of the textile industrialists were not overstated. He assured that he would himself pursue the issue of Rs 19 billion levies drawback to pull out the industry from present liquidity crunch.

The minister said the government would soon overcome power shortage however supply of gas needed rationalisation. He vowed to become the only minister in the history to go an extra mile to solve the textile sector's problems. He urged the newsmen not to ask him for setting a deadline for the industry's problems solution.

He rejected the impression that the cotton shortfall would hit the textile sector, saying that the expected target crop would be suffice to meet the industry's needs this year without any problem of its shortage on the local market. Earlier, Chairman Pakistan Apparel Forum (PAF) Muhammad Javed Bilwani told the meeting that a large number of industrial units had shut down due to persistent liquidity crunch, urging him to resolve the issues of drawback levies to help revive the sick units.

He also demanded the allocation of a separate gas and electricity tariff slab to the textile sector from the general manufacturing sector, as its contribution to the national economy was beyond 60 percent alone.

Representatives of the value-added textile including Saleem Parekh, Junaid Makhda, Rafiq Godil, Khwaja Usman, Naqi Bari, Muzzammal Hussain and others attended the meeting.