Panipat Cotton

The slump in cotton price from Rs 4,800 per quintal last season to around Rs 4,000 this season has become a blessing in disguise for Panipat-based home textile exporters. It is helping them to contain their input cost by around 5 to 6 per cent. Home-grown textile companies have increased their trade volumes and are passing this margin to consumers in Latin America, Middle East and African markets.

Pawan Kumar, a Sonipat-based innovative farmer dealing in cotton said, “Last season, we had sold our cotton at around Rs 4,600 per quintal to around Rs 4,900 per quintal. But, in current season, the return has been in the range of Rs 3,900 to Rs 4,100 per quintal, down by around 20 per cent. ” JUMP IN VOLUME Prem Sagar VI], president of Panipat Exporters Association said, “The export market of Panipat has been hit by around Rs 1,000 crore in last financial year due to the Euro Zone crisis. This sliding cotton prices are giving us (textile exporters) tab our input ost by around 5 to 6 per cent. However, lowering price of cotton does not result in increasing the profitability of the Panipat home textile exporters. He said that overseas clients are well aware about this new development in the domestic market as they do while following the rupee- dollar convertibility. “It is helping us to compete against Pakistani and Bangladeshi products (which are cheaper than Indian home textile products by around 15 per cent to even 20 per cent in some cases) and we are able to dent in their market, especially in Venezuela,

Panama, Brazil, IJAE, Syria, South Africa. These are the major countries which have shown interest in pursuing business with us this year by shifting their loyalty from Pakistan and Bangladesh. ” Prem Sagar VIJ said that these markets have the potential to generate around Rs 500 crore-Rs 600 crore per annum (around 15 per cent of the net export turnover in 2012)