Pakistan Invests in 40 New Ginning Factories

By Jim.Robinson|July 14, 2011

With a large new crop of (still) high-priced cotton on its way, investors in Pakistan are increasing their ginning capacity by investing nearly $35 million into the opening of 40 new plants and expanding the capacity of existing ones, according to a story published in the Pakistan Observer.

According to Naseem Usman, a cotton consultant and chairman of the Cotton Brokers Forum, 30 of the new ginning factories have been established in Sindh and the others in Punjab (15 in the Sanghar district, seven in Mirpurkhas, and a total of eight factories in Hyderabad and Kotri). Four ginning factories are ready for operation in Chicha Watani and four more in Burewala, with one each in Layyah, Arifwala and Mianwali, he added.

The factories will help in handling Pakistan’s bumper crop of cotton, which is estimated to be more than 15 million bales this year. Currently, there are nearly 1,000 ginning factories in the country: 250 in Sindh and more than 720 in Punjab, with the others in Balochistan.

It costs somewhere between $700,000 and $825,000 to set up a ginning factory with five or six gin saws, Usman says.