Following a break about two months, cotton prices in the nation have seen a notable rise along with a fresh buying interest from textile mills.
For cotton ginners struggling with a protracted low demand and dropping prices, this invention offers respite.
Record imports of sales tax-free cotton, cotton yarn and grey fabric under the Export Facilitation Scheme (EFS) were mostly responsible for the current fall in local cotton prices. This flood of imported goods seriously reduced local cotton sales, which drove several ginning mills and textile mills towards inactivity under extreme financial constraint.
Still, the tide seems to have changed throughout the previous week. Along with a dramatic drop in the US Dollar Index, reports of improved trade ties between China and the United States set off a significant rise in cotton prices on worldwide markets. Reaching a multi-month high of 68.41 cents per pound, the New York Cotton Exchange particularly saw a record 2.75 cents per pound increase in its July futures contract in one day.
The increasing tendency is projected to continue this week, thereby influencing household prices.
This worldwide movement has resulted in a price rise of around Rs500 per maund (40kg) in Pakistan, therefore bringing the current cotton price to almost Rs17,500 per maund. Cotton ginners have become hopeful about the increased purchasing demand from textile mills.
While the Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) has once more set an ambitious and apparently unachievable production target of 10.18 million bales for the Cotton Year 2025-26, despite a constant failure to reach cotton farming and production targets in recent years. But for the first time, the FCA has not yet indicated the production targets for particular provinces.
