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CCA body reviews cotton arrivals

KARACHI: The Standing Committee on Cotton Crop Assessment which met here on Monday at Karachi Cotton Association under the chairmanship of Member National Security Council (NSC) M. Shafi Niaz, reviewed the pace of seed cotton arrival.

The meeting was attended by representatives/officials of all the segments of cotton economy. The participants included Director General, Federal Plant Protection Department, Directors of Cotton Research Institutes at Multan, Sakrand and Faisalabad, Director, Federal Bureau of Statistics, representatives of the provincial agriculture departments and crop reporting services of the Punjab and Sindh, the Textile Commissioner, Chairman KCA, Chairman PCGA, officials of APTMA and cotton growers from the Punjab and Sindh.

During its review the Committee noted that the arrivals as on March 1 this year were 9.622 million equivalent lint bales (Punjab=7.495, Sindh=2.127 million bales. It indicated an overall improvement of 35.37 percent in arrivals (Punjab=37.23 percent, Sindh=29.20 percent) compared with last year's corresponding arrivals.

The textile mills had reportedly purchased 7.864 million bales showing an increase of 34 percent when compared with last year's corresponding purchases of 5.851 million bales.

Besides, the of-takes of the TCP and the private exporters were exported at 0.516 million bales and 0.214 million bales, respectively.

The unsold stocks with the PCGA on March 1 were 1.03 million bales against last year's 1.25 million bales. APP