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APTMA fears

cotton shorage

KARACHI: The private All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) said on Sunday the country could face a shortage of at least one million (375-lb) bales of cotton despite an estimated higher production.

It said in a statement crop arrival figures showed that total cotton production in 1995/96 (July-June) was unlikely to cross the 10 million bales against earlier estimates of 10.5 million bales compared to the 1994/95 production of 7.7 million bales.

Exporters have shipped 1.6 million bales out of a total 2.5 million bales already registered for export with the state-run Export Promotion Bureau, it said.

APTMA said the textile mills were likely to face a shortage of at least one million bales as mill consumption for 1995/96 was likely to be 8.5 million bales, of which they had already bought 7.5 million bales.

It urged the government immediately to withdraw a 10- percent regulatory duty on import of cotton and suspend further shipment by exporters until the requirement of local textile industry was met. The state-run Cotton Export Corporation of Pakistan said on Sunday cotton production reached a provisional 9.92 million 375-lb bales up to Thursday during the 1995/96 (July-June) crop year, up from 7.644 million bales in the same period last year.

The corporation said mills had bought 7.992 million bales, up from 6.619 million in the year-ago period. Private exporters had purchased 1.458 million bales, compared with 76,800 bales in the same period last year.

Some 474,900 unsold bales were stocked at ginneries up to Thursday, compared with 948,300 in the same period a year ago, it added.

Pakistan had set a production target of 9.5 million bales and dealers say production was likely to rise slightly above 10 million bales in 1995/96, up from 7.7 million in 1994/95.-Reuter