LAHORE: Phutti arrivals at ginning factories kept a promising trend for the third consecutive fortnight, strengthening hopes for harvesting over six million bales this season.

Cotton production during the last three fortnights remained 22 per cent higher than last season`s. However, the total arrivals touched 4.894m bales till Nov 15, which is 34pc less year-on-year, according to the data released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association on Monday.

In Punjab, 2.245m bales reached the ginning units, and 2.649m bales in Sindh, showing a fall of 35pc and 33pc, respectively, compared with the data for the last season in the two provinces.

The PCGA report said the textile industry procured 4.14m bales from the ginners.

The most cotton arrivals have been reported from the ginning factories of Sindh`s Sanghar district, which produced 1.299m bales, while Punjab`s Bahawalnagar district stood second with 0.547m bales.

There are currently 515 ginning factories operating across the country. Cotton Ginners Forum chairman Ihsanul Haque says that in the three consecutive fortnights from Oct 1 to Nov 15 a total of 2.854m bales arrived at the ginning units across the country, which is unexpected compared to the same period last year.

This depicts a record 22pc increase in the cotton arrival and leads to the possibility of crossing the total domestic production mark of six million bales and a likely reduction in the import needs of the local textile industry. The total output figure was estimated to be around 5.5m bales.