Pakistan’s textile industry braces for $3 billion cotton import bill as floods devastate crops
Pakistan’s textile industry braces for $3 billion cotton import bill as floods devastate crops/node/2613987/pakistan
Pakistan’s textile industry braces for $3 billion cotton import bill as floods devastate crops
Special
In this picture taken on August 30, 2022 labourers walk past cotton crops damaged by flood waters at Sammu Khan Bhanbro village in Sukkur, Sindh province. (AFP/File)
KARACHI: Pakistan’s textile manufacturers expect cotton imports to surge to as much as $3 billion this year, double last year’s bill, after floods devastated key growing areas in Punjab and now threaten Sindh, industry officials and analysts said.
The monsoon deluges, which have already swamped central Punjab, the nation’s breadbasket, are moving south toward Sindh, the country’s second-largest cotton belt, raising fears that further damage to fields will deepen losses in the days ahead. Agriculture makes up nearly a quarter of GDP and employs almost half of the labor force, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
“Probably, our cotton import can exceed $2.5 to $3 billion this year alone,” said Kamran Arshad, chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), adding that millers imported $1.5 billion worth of cotton last year from Brazil, the United States, Africa and Australia.
Arshad said cotton-growing areas in central Punjab such as Vehari, Mailsi, Chichawatni and Burewala had been “negatively affected,” while some genetically modified Bt cotton crops were also under water.
“This can lead to a crisis, because a lot of people will be losing their livelihoods. Their crops will be at stake,” he said, urging the government to declare a national emergency and curb luxury imports to conserve foreign exchange.
He also blamed record water releases from upstream India for compounding the devastation. Under the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, India controls the eastern rivers but is required to notify Pakistan of dam discharges that can cause downstream flooding.
Flood damage has also undermined projections for Pakistan’s top export industry, which earned $18 billion last year.
“We were projecting a growth in textile exports from $18 billion to up to $20 billion in the coming year, but I don’t think that level will be achieved because of the unavailability of cotton and the higher cost of production,” said Ahsan Mehanti, chief executive of Arif Habib Commodities.
He estimated the industry could face a $6 billion hit, including about $4 billion in additional import costs and $2 billion in lost export potential. “This flood will have a devastating impact not only on cotton output but the exchange rate will equally be impacted,” Mehanti said.
PRODUCTION LOSSES
Analysts warned Pakistan may lose up to five million bales from this year’s 10.2 million bale production target, with overall output falling below last year’s seven million.
“The government’s target to produce 5.5 million bales in Punjab does not seem achievable now … cotton output may not exceed 4.5 million bales if flooding increases,” said Naseem Usman, chairman of the Karachi Cotton Brokers Forum.
Official data confirm the downturn. Pakistan’s cotton production as of Aug. 15 had already contracted by more than 17 percent to 887,401 bales, compared with 1.1 million a year earlier, according to a Sept. 2 report by the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee.
Usman said consumption would remain higher than domestic output, forcing Pakistan to rely heavily on imports that could exceed $2 billion, including raw cotton, seed and oil for animal feed.
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday instructed Pakistan’s disaster agency to ensure timely flood alerts and coordinate with provincial authorities as the country witnessed fresh surges in its eastern rivers, with the Chenab reaching near critical levels overnight, according to official data.
The government announced on Wednesday floods had killed at least 43 people in the last 10 days and displaced more than 1.3 million in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, where hundreds of relief camps have been set up across inundated districts.
Nationwide, 883 people have died since June 26, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), as officials warn of further inundations, reviving memories of the catastrophic 2022 deluges that submerged a third of the country and caused over $35 billion in losses.
The present situation has been fueled by days of heavy monsoon rains and dam releases from upstream India. Embankments are being reinforced across downstream districts, where evacuation teams have been pre-deployed.
“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday directed the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to complete preparations for rescue and relief operations, considering the rise of water levels in Ravi, Chenab and Sutlej rivers,” the state-owned Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency said.
“The prime minister, who is currently on a visit to China, telephoned the NDMA Chairman Lt General Inam Haider Malik, and directed him to issue early warnings to the public regarding the rising water levels in the said rivers,” it added.
Sharif instructed the authority to fully cooperate with provincial governments to expedite safety measures and relief operations.
The Punjab Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) reported in the early hours of Thursday flows above 550,000 cusecs at Khanki and Qadirabad headworks on the Chenab, among the highest levels in years.
Downstream gauges at Sher Shah and Head Muhammad Wala were also rising, within a few feet of danger marks, while Chiniot Bridge recorded 304,220 cusecs and climbing.
The Ravi was flowing at elevated levels, with 114,130 cusecs at Balloki and 152,480 cusecs at Sidhnai headworks, though steady for now.
The Sutlej was also carrying significant volumes, with 319,295 cusecs at G.S. Wala and 159,662 cusecs at Punjnad, where steady but high flows posed a threat to downstream settlements.
SINDH ‘SUPER FLOOD’
Meanwhile, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said in an interview to a private news channel the province was preparing for a potential “super flood” scenario of up to 900,000 cusecs, according to his office, warning that while Punjab bore the brunt of the current disaster, Sindh would face the cumulative inflows within days.
“The real danger lies in the possibility of all these rivers’ flood peaks synchronizing at the same time,” Shah said. “We expect this won’t happen and instead the peaks will reach Sindh in phases, reducing pressure.”
He noted that Punjab was experiencing around 160,000 cusecs at Panjnad with the peak expected today, Thursday, after which Sindh would have two days to carry out further evacuation and preparations.
Shah said Sindh had drawn up village-level evacuation plans for different flood levels but persuading riverine communities to leave their homes remained the greatest challenge.
He stressed that embankments were being closely monitored, provincial ministers deployed at barrages and the irrigation department placed on high alert.
“Our preparations are complete, and we pray this time passes without major damage,” he said.
ISLAMABAD: As Pakistan reels from floods that have killed at least 43 people and displaced more than 1.3 million in Punjab this month, a surprise call by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur to build the long-stalled Kalabagh Dam has reignited one of the country’s fiercest water disputes.
The Kalabagh Dam, proposed in 1984 on the Indus River in Punjab’s Mianwali district, is designed to generate 3,600 megawatts of electricity, irrigate farmland and store water to help manage floods. But the $10 billion project has never moved forward because of fierce opposition from the provinces of Sindh and KP, where leaders fear it would divert water southward, submerge districts like Nowshera, and displace thousands of families. Assemblies in the two provinces have passed multiple resolutions against the dam, while successive governments in Islamabad have avoided pushing it for fear of inflaming regional tensions.
For now, Gandapur’s comments appear unlikely to break the deadlock. But the fresh debate underscores Pakistan’s deepening struggle to balance water, energy and climate security — with storage dams seen by some as salvation and by others as relics of a bygone era.
“Future generations will benefit from this project,” Gandapur said this week, urging provinces to set aside reservations.
His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Pakistan’s largest opposition party, which rules KP, has quickly distanced itself from the remarks, while the Pakistan Peoples Party, which governs Sindh, insisted the dam was unacceptable. The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is the only major party backing the plan.
“We need consensus first on Kalabagh Dam,” Nadeem Afzal Chan, information secretary of the PPP, told Arab News. “There are provincial resolutions against the project. At a time when Pakistan is busy with flood rehabilitation, we should not lose focus.”
The Awami National Party, a long-time PTI opponent in KP, also rejected Gandapur’s statement.
“It’s a non-starter. People of this area will not allow its construction,” ANP leader Sardar Hussain Babak said, warning it would submerge the Peshawar valley.
While opposition remains entrenched, official reports prepared by the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) have long sought to dismiss objections as misconceptions.
One such report reviewed by Arab News argues that KP’s fear of flooding in Nowshera and drainage problems in Mardan, Pabbi and Swabi are unfounded, citing engineering studies showing water levels would remain below critical thresholds.
It also downplays displacement risks, saying only about 14,500 of KP’s 82,500 potentially affected residents would need relocation.
Sindh’s concerns over desertification, reduced flows to the Indus delta, damage to mangroves and fisheries are countered by data showing canal withdrawals from the Indus have historically risen, with sufficient volumes still expected to flow downstream of Kotri Barrage to sustain ecology.
The report further notes that fish populations in Sindh have grown despite other major dams on the Indus, suggesting Kalabagh would not devastate aquatic life.
A senior WAPDA official, declining to be named because the issue is politically sensitive, said the project had been thoroughly studied:
“From an engineering perspective, the design addresses safety and water distribution concerns. The real obstacle is political consensus, not technical feasibility.”
“OLD TECHNIQUE”
Independent experts say the Kalabagh project reflects outdated thinking in the face of climate change.
“Flood control dams are always left empty so that they can break the wave of floods,” said Dr. Hassan Abbas, a hydrology specialist.
“Storage dams can only absorb the first wave of a flood. When they are full, the next wave can only be countered by opening spillways, an act that causes flooding in lower areas. This is an old technique.”
Muhammad Abdullah Deol, a flood-risk management scientist at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, agreed, warning that Kalabagh’s capacity of 5–7.5 million acre-feet would be minuscule compared to the Indus River’s 145 million acre-feet flow.
“Storage of Kalabagh will only increase hydraulic pressure along the Indus, leading to more destructive releases downstream,” he said.
Other specialists stress that Pakistan’s flood challenges are rooted not in storage capacity but in poor planning and weak adaptation.
“You can’t engineer your way out of climate change with a single mega-dam,” said environmental planner Saira Rehman. “What Pakistan needs is zoning to stop construction on floodplains, stronger embankments, and restoring wetlands that absorb excess water.”
Experts also point to the Himalayan glaciers feeding the Indus, which ensure massive seasonal flows regardless of dam infrastructure.
“Glaciers will melt, and water will flow into the Arabian Sea,” Dr. Abbas said. “The modern mindset is to adapt — recharge groundwater, strengthen defenses, and live with floods rather than try to block them.”
KILLA ABDULLAH, Pakistan: On a sweltering August morning earlier this month, 30-year-old Bibi Hajjira pulled a scarf tightly around her head, slipped on gloves, and covered her face with an embroidered mask before setting out from her small village in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province.
Perched on the back of a motorbike driven by her husband, their two-year-old son wedged between them, she began the 40-kilometer ride across rocky tracks and water-cut ditches toward the District Emergency Operations Center in Killa Abdullah, one of Pakistan’s most high-risk polio districts, with chronic vaccine refusals, logistical challenges, and proximity to cross-border virus transmission from Afghanistan.
Hajjira has her job cut out for her: to convince reluctant mothers to let their children swallow two drops of the oral polio vaccine — a mission that makes her both a lifeline for the community and vulnerable to resistance, and sometimes even attacks, in one of Pakistan’s most polio-affected districts.”
“This work is very challenging because we have to move from village to village and house to house despite extreme heat and sunlight,” Hajjira told Arab News.
“It is a challenging task to convince the resisting families of polio drops, like trying to convert a non-Muslim to Islam.”
Bibi Hajira, a female polio worker vaccinates a child with polio drops in Killa Abdullah district Pakistan on August 28, 2025. (AN Photo)
Pakistan launched its fourth nationwide polio vaccination drive of the year on Sept. 1, aiming to immunize 28.7 million children under five by Sept. 9. Officials say the country has reported 24 cases so far in 2025, compared with 74 in all of last year, suggesting progress even as challenges remain.
Indeed, despite three decades of eradication efforts, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries in the world where poliovirus is still endemic, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The South Asian nation had reduced cases to just one in 2021, but vaccine refusals, poor routine immunization and security challenges have repeatedly allowed the virus to resurface.
The WHO last year also warned of “fake finger marking,” where vaccinators mark children’s fingers without actually giving drops, hampering eradication efforts.
Attacks on vaccination teams have further undermined progress. Since 2012, militants have killed nearly 100 polio workers and security personnel guarding them, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, viewing the campaign as a Western plot.
Just this year, several police officers protecting vaccination teams were killed in ambushes in the northwest.
WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINES
Hajjira is one of around 225,000 women mobilized in Pakistan during recent nationwide campaigns, according to the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC).
Officials say women make up nearly 60 percent of vaccinators in Balochistan, where cultural and religious norms often restrict male outsiders from entering private homes. In many conservative households, only women can interact freely with mothers and children, making female vaccinators not just important but essential to the program’s success. Without them, entire pockets of the province would remain inaccessible to immunization teams, officials say.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but least developed province, is also among the hardest to reach: vast distances, rugged terrain, and porous borders with Afghanistan complicate campaigns. Resistance to polio drops is often rooted in illiteracy, poverty and mistrust of government initiatives, leaving female health workers on the frontlines of both persuasion and delivery.
“The female polio workers have been providing good support, especially in some hard areas of the province,” said Inam ul Haque, provincial coordinator for the Emergency Operation Center in Balochistan.
“They have access to go inside the houses and rooms to find and vaccinate children with polio drops.”
Gains have been made.
Bibi Hajira, a female polio worker meets with local tribesmen in Killa Abdullah district Pakistan on August 28, 2025. (AN Photo)
Last year, 27 of Pakistan’s human cases of polio came from Balochistan, but the province has reported none so far in 2025.
Out of 162 samples collected from 23 sites this year, only 77 tested positive, reducing the positivity rate to 48 percent. Additionally, the number of affected districts had dropped from 24 to 19.
The most encouraging development came in July 2025: only one out of 23 samples tested positive, bringing monthly positivity down to just 4 percent, a strong indicator that containment measures and intensified immunization efforts are taking effect.
But Haque said “the threat of the polio virus still looms over us.”
And the struggle to convince families remains fraught.
“Many parents here resist vaccination due to lack of education,” Hajjira said. “Some women even say, ‘Our husbands have sworn that if we give polio drops to the children, they will divorce us’.”
Yet she keeps going.
“This is a struggle, and no work succeeds without struggle, if even one child is vaccinated because of our efforts, it is a great success for us,” she said with a smile.
Her husband, Naimatullah, admitted he initially resisted his wife’s work because of the stigma around the vaccine.
“I have personally seen cases in our village where polio-affected children are now grown up with lifetime disabilities ... that convinced me and now I see this as an act of goodness,” he said.
Bibi Hajira, a female polio worker meets with local tribesmen (not in picture) in Killa Abdullah district Pakistan on August 28, 2025. (AN Photo)
Local residents say female vaccinators have changed attitudes in a district long marked by refusals.
“Women in remote parts of Killa Abdullah district were outright refusing polio vaccine for their children but since female polio workers started convincing them, now they are aware of the benefits,” said Muhammad Rahim, a villager from Killi Hajji Baqi.
Hajjira said she had managed to vaccinate nearly 800 “hidden children,” those whose parents initially refused. Now, she hopes more women can join this line of work.
“It is very hard to find women in Killa Abdullah who are willing or allowed by their families to join this profession,” Hajjira said.
“We endure negative attitudes, even insults and humiliation, but I keep persuading the families, hoping that once their thinking changes, the attitudes will also be changed.”
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan cricket team will eye a win against the UAE today, Thursday, and secure a place for itself in the ongoing T20 tri-nation series in Sharjah.
Pakistan will take on the UAE after suffering an 18-run defeat against Afghanistan on Tuesday night. The Green Shirts failed in their bid to reach Afghanistan’s 170-run target, falling short by 18 runs in the end.
“In T20 Tri-series, Pakistan will take on United Arab Emirates in Sharjah on Thursday,” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.
Pakistan beat the UAE last week in Sharjah, defeating the home side by 31 runs to clinch their second win in the tournament. Skipper Salman Ali Agha’s side had earlier beaten Afghanistan too, becoming the top-ranked side in the series.
In the Aug. 30 match against the UAE, Pakistan had finished at 207 runs from their 20 overs, led by opening batter Saim Ayub who scored a whirlwind 69 runs from 38 balls.
Middle-order aggressive batter Hassan Nawaz scored 56 runs from 26 balls while Mohammad Nawaz made 25 off 15 balls.
In response, the UAE batted aggressively, led by Asif Khan, who smashed 77 runs off 35 balls. Khan smashed six fours and an equal number of sixes during his innings at a strike rate of 220.
Pakistani pacer Hasan Ali had taken 4/47 from his allotted four overs while all-rounder Mohammad Nawaz returned with figures of 2-21.
The match between the two sides on Thursday is expected to begin at 8:00 p.m. Pakistan Standard Time.
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday invited top Chinese business executives and their companies to invest in Pakistan, highlighting his government’s investment-friendly policies amid Islamabad’s push for sustainable economic growth.
The Pakistani prime minister has been on a visit to China since last week, where he attended a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and held talks with the Chinese leadership, including President Xi Jinping.
On Wednesday, he also attended a Chinese military parade along with Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Beijing. The Pakistani prime minister later met senior executives of China’s leading enterprises in Beijing to boost business-to-business (B2B) investment cooperation between the two countries, state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported.
“The discussions focused on expanding cooperation in priority sectors including textiles, information technology, agriculture, industry, mines and minerals, road and digital connectivity, e-commerce and space technologies,” the report said.
Sharif informed the Chinese businessmen about the government’s reforms, which included tax incentives for investors, streamlined visa policies for Chinese nationals and the establishment of dedicated booths at major airports to facilitate ease of travel and business.
“The prime minister emphasized that industrial cooperation remains the cornerstone of Pakistan-China economic cooperation and a defining pillar of the high-quality development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as it enters into its second phase,” the report said.
He stressed that Pakistan offered a “unique comparative advantage” for Chinese investors as compared to other countries, pointing out that the country has a large pool of skilled and cost-effective labor, competitive input costs and strategic connectivity to regional and global markets.
Pakistan considers China a major investor and regional ally. China is Pakistan’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding $25 billion in recent years, and Chinese companies have already invested heavily in power, transport, infrastructure, and telecoms projects across the country as part of the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.
However, business cooperation between the two countries has faced setbacks in the form of recent attacks by separatist militants who have targeted Chinese nationals and projects in Pakistan, as well as delays in CPEC projects.
In his meeting with Xi on Tuesday, Sharif assured the Chinese leader his government would “spare no effort” to provide security to Chinese nationals and projects in Pakistan, Chinese state media reported.
