BAMAKO, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Mali has harvested around 721,000 tonnes of cotton to date and is on track to hit its initial forecast of a record crop of 725,000 tonnes, a senior Chamber of Agriculture official said late on Friday.

Only last month, the West African nation trimmed the forecast to 706,000 tonnes for the current 2017/18 season due to an earlier than anticipated end to the rainy season.

However those concerns have not materialised, Bréhima Cissé, the chamber’s secretary-general, told Reuters.

Mali is Africa’s second-biggest cotton producer behind neighbour Burkina Faso and produced 647,000 tonnes of raw, unginned cotton last season.

Industry players say this season’s increased production is largely due to higher world prices and government fertiliser subsidies.

Mali’s cotton season runs from April to March in two phases: production between May/June and September/October, and a harvesting and marketing phase that runs from October/November to the end of March. (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Sandra Maler)