Cotton arrival from the current crop has increased 11.72 per cent but remains below the revised output target for 2016, a industry data shows. In its fortnightly cotton arrival report, the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) has said that a total of 10.36 million bales arrived in the country by December 31, last year against 9.27 million bales during the same period in the preceding year.

Analyst and president of Karachi Cotton Brokers Association Naseem Usman has revealed that the government had fixed the target at 14.1 million cotton bales which was later revised to 10.8 million bales. He further said that his Association doesn’t see cotton arrival going beyond 10.5 million bales of 170 kilogram each.

Fortnightly cotton arrival flow from December 15 to 31 remained at 218,762 bales but lower than last year’s arrival of 244,987 bales during the same period. Arrivals from Punjab increased by 18.71 per cent to 6.61 million bales as compared to 5.57 million bales during the same period in 2015. Flows from Sindh increased only 1.21 per cent to 3.74 million bales against 3.70 million bales.

The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma), citing the reason of shortage against consumption demand, has urged the government to withdraw four per cent custom duty on cotton import in the country. Pakistan’s total cotton demand is around 16 million bales. According to APTMA sources, the millers had imported 1.2 million tons of lint from African countries, Brazil and US earlier this season and purchased 1.0 million more bales from the local crop. Still they required 3.5 million bales to meet the consumption demand, which would now be fulfilled with import from India.