Cotton arrivals rise 7.5pc but 150 textile mills sit idle

Cotton arrivals at ginning factories rose 7.53 per cent year on year to 4.08 million bales by October 15, but the country’s cotton and textile industries face a deepening crisis, Dawn reported. Around 500 ginning factories, more than 150 textile mills and nearly half of the country’s power looms are reportedly lying idle.

Industry representatives blame rising production costs and alleged misuse of the Export Facilitation Scheme (EFS), under which imported yarn and fabric are meant to be re-exported but are reportedly being sold in the domestic market instead.

The arrival figures

According to the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA), arrivals reached 4,081,265 bales by October 15, up 285,628 bales from 3,795,637 a year earlier.

• Punjab: 1.64 million bales, up 7.79 per cent. Bahawalnagar led with 418,750 bales, followed by Bahawalpur (294,606), Dera Ghazi Khan (236,514), Rahim Yar Khan (169,949) and Layyah (122,327).
• Sindh: 2.44 million bales, up 7.35 per cent. Sanghar topped the list with 1.14 million bales, followed by Sukkur (264,500), Naushehro Feroze (223,200) and Khairpur (213,900).
• Factories and buyers: 471 ginning factories were operating nationwide. Textile mills had bought about 3.45 million bales and exporters 97,000, leaving 531,530 bales unsold. Arrivals in the preceding fortnight totalled 872,863 bales.

Cotton Ginners Forum Chairman Ihsanul Haq warned that bad weather could leave national output below early estimates. He also pointed to a gap between the PCGA’s figures and those of the Punjab Crop Reporting Service, which put provincial production at 2.983 million bales against 1.638 million bales in arrivals by October 15.

The import complaint

Haq said alleged misuse of the EFS, together with higher production costs, had undermined the domestic industry. He cited estimates that 40 million to 50 million metres of fabric had been imported from China alone under the scheme, while exports showed little matching growth. Figures from the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) show man-made yarn imports rising from 3,056 tonnes in the first quarter of 2025-26 to 12,773 tonnes in the same quarter of 2026-27, and man-made fabric imports from 660 tonnes to 8,628 tonnes.

Haq alleged that some goods meant for re-export were instead sold locally, where an 18 per cent sales tax applies, putting domestic manufacturers at a disadvantage. Aptma welcomed Customs action against alleged misuse of the scheme and called for restrictions on imports of man-made yarn and fabric under the EFS.

Farmers and the next season

Sajid Mahmood, head of the Transfer of Technology Department at the Central Cotton Research Institute in Multan, said reviving cotton needs policies that look beyond output to farmers’ profitability, production costs, market access and lint quality. If cotton keeps paying less than rival crops, he warned, farmers could cut acreage next season. He said success should be judged by farmers’ net income per acre, not just the volume reaching ginners.

With 15 to 20 days of picking remaining, he urged farmers to follow expert advice. The institute recommends a spray of 2kg of urea per 100 litres of water for fields with eight to 10 green bolls per plant, and advises monitoring pink bollworm, picking mature bolls promptly and harvesting in dry weather to avoid contamination.

Naseem Usman of the Karachi Cotton Brokers Forum urged the government to announce a cotton support price and also set up a way to buy cotton if market rates fall below it. He hoped strict government measures would reduce undocumented cotton trade this year and might lift overall production.

Why it matters

The picture is mixed: more cotton is reaching the gins, but a large share of the machinery that turns it into yarn and cloth is not running. Whether the government acts on the industry’s complaints about imports under the EFS, and on a support price with a buying mechanism, will help decide how much of the crop finds a buyer at a fair price. Read our earlier report on textile exporters seeking a rebate to halt the export slide.

This article draws on reporting by Dawn.