Pakistan cotton crop season has turned out to be a good year as it registered an increase of around 4.97 lakh bales during the crop season 2013-14 March ending as compared to the corresponding period last year. The country has received more than 13.38 million cotton bales during the crop season.

Till April 1, 2014 during fortnight, the country produced around 120,100 bales while during same period last year, the country produced more than 120,300 bales.

During 2013-14 period the textile sector bought around 12.31 million bales, private sector exporters purchased around 382,100 bales and total stocks were slightly more than 697,000 bales as compared to same period last year stocks of 693,000 bales.

Punjab registered an overall increase of 6.90 percent in the production and arrivals in Sindh were recorded at 3.81 million bales.

Better yield is attributed to the well-researched BT cottonseed, proper crop-related information to growers for usage of fertilizer and appropriate water availability in major crop-growing areas in Punjab and Sindh.

The country is in a position to export more than 2.35 million bales worth $490 million, as the domestic prices of lint are comparatively lower than the international price.

According to the Cotton Commissioner more than 10.30 million cotton bales production targets was fixed in Punjab while 4.35 million bales targets was set to produce in Sindh, 0.1 million and 0.002 million bales in Balochistan and KPK respectively with fertilizer and cotton related pesticide availability would also be satisfactory.

Also Meteorological Department had predicted normal and slightly above normal rainfall and temperature range in the cotton belt of Sindh and Punjab province, water availability in reservoirs would be satisfactory during the cotton sowing and growing season.

However, the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) had set target at 13.75 million bales for the cotton 2013-14 season.

The global cotton mill consumption was also projected to increase by 4.9 percent to 26.55 million tonnes in 2013-14.