KARACHI: The country’s raw cotton exports registered a 10 percent growth during the first quarter of current fiscal year (FY16) because of lower commodity prices in the domestic market and higher demand on the international front. Exporters told that domestic cotton prices were on the lower side in the initial months of crop arrival that attracted the foreign buyers for cotton procurement.
They said India, Indonesia and Vietnam were leading buyers of Pakistani cotton, while Bangladesh also procured some commodity during the first three months of this fiscal year, when prices were less than Rs 4,800 per maund in the domestic market. “Normally, Indian cotton crop arrives after Pakistan’s crop, of which they procured some quantity from Pakistan to meet their demand,” they added.
According to official statistics, the country exported raw cotton amounting to $55 million during July-September of FY16 compared to $50 million in the same period of last fiscal year (FY15), depicting an increase of 11 percent or $5 million. Month-on-month basis, export of raw cotton posted a surge of 7 percent in September 2015 when compared with September 2014. Pakistan earned $32.4 million through exports of raw cotton in September 2015 as against $30.4 million in September 2014.
Trader said that as per estimates Pakistan is unlikely to achieve the initial cotton production target of 15.49 million bales set by the Federal Cotton Committee (FCC) as the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) in its meeting held on September 18, 2015 predicted a 13.8 million bales crop for the year 2015-16.
“After short crop estimates, cotton prices are moving up and presently, cotton exports are on low track due to higher prices. Therefore, now the traders are planning to import cotton for domestic consumption and Pakistan is likely to be a leading cotton importer at the end of this year,” they added. Traders said Pakistan is the fourth largest cotton producer in the world, however unable to produce very high quality cotton. “We can earn billions of dollars foreign exchange by producing quality cotton,” they maintained.
