Cotton arrival plunges 36% year-on-year

Cotton arrival in Pakistan decreased by 36% year-on-year, showed the latest data released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginner’s Association (PCGA) on Friday.

As per the report, total cotton arrival in Pakistan declined to 4.764 million bales as of February 1, 2023, compared to 7.421 million bales in the same period last year, a fall of 2.657 million bales.

The decline is attributed to flash floods in Pakistan, which devastated large swathes of agricultural land in the country, especially in Sindh and Balochistan.

The decrease in cotton arrivals, an essential raw material for the textile sector, is alarming for the cash-strapped economy of the South Asian country, which is already facing depleting foreign exchange reserves. Its central bank has reserves of just $3.09 billion remaining, barely enough for three weeks of essential imports.

Cotton arrival declines 37% year-on-year

Meanwhile, as per the PCGA data, cotton arrival reported a substantial decrease from Sindh.

As of February 1, cotton arrival in Sindh was 1.871 million bales compared to 3.512 million bales in the same period in 2021, a decrease of 1.641 million bales or 47%. On a monthly basis, cotton arrival recorded a slight improvement of 1% as compared to 1.850 million bales arrived on January 1.

Similarly, cotton arrival in Punjab clocked in at 2.893 million bales as compared to 3.909 million bales reported in the same period last year, a decline of 26%. However, month-on-month, basis, cotton arrival recorded an increase of 5% as compared to 2.762 million bales on January 1.

Pakistan’s textile sector exports witnessed a significant decline of 12.4%, clocking in at $1.36 billion in January 2023 in comparison to $1.55 billion recorded in the same month of the previous year, showed provisional data released by the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) on Thursday.

Earlier, in an opinion piece for Business Recorder, Asif Inam, Chairman of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), said that the recent floods have devastated the cotton crop, which is denting the textile sector.

“Flooding in dozens of districts of Pakistan has destroyed a wide swath of agricultural land,” he wrote. “While the industry requires 14 million bales, the country could only produce 5 million bales of cotton domestically.