Pakistan at 4th Position at Top World Cotton Production Forecast

The International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) has forecasted all-time-high world cotton production in 2004-05 of 111 million bales, amending its previous estimation of 102 million bales and estimating China as the top cotton producing nation with Pakistan taking fourth position.

The US-based ICAC stated this in its recent report received here by local traders and cotton stakeholders.

The ICAC reported, ‘This is the highest world supply ever, 600,000 tones above the previous record in 2001-02. In volume and in percentage, this will be the largest year-to-year increase in world supply since 1984-85.’

The ICAC, which represents 42 cotton producing and consuming countries, informed it revised estimation due to higher-than-target production in almost all the cotton producing countries.

The committee revealed that 65 percent of the increase is expected to occur in China, which leads the cotton producing countries while other countries’ production is also at an all time-high level. ‘Records or near-records are forecast in the top five producing countries: China, the USA, India, Pakistan and Brazil…