ISLAMABAD: Cotton production in Pakistan, the fourth-largest grower of the world, may be more than previously forecast this year as rising yields compensate for crop losses from floods, reported Bloomberg on Wednesday.

The report said that output might reach 12.7 million bales of 170 kilograms (375 pounds) each in the season that started July 1, compared with 12.2 million bales estimated by the government in October, Kishin Chand, vice chairman of Pakistan Cotton GinnersΆ Association, said in an interview in Karachi.

A bigger crop may help Pakistan boost exports and widen the 40 percent losses in futures in New York this year. Cotton has tumbled since reaching a record $2.197 per pound on March 7 as demand waned in China, the biggest consumer, and global production rose, it added.

The use of “Bt cotton has yielded us amazing results,” Chand said, referring to the genetically modified strain that produces toxins lethal to bollworms, which are among the most serious threats to the crop.

Farmers in Punjab and Sindh provinces, the biggest growers, doubled the use of BT cotton seeds this year, he said. Pakistan lowered its production estimate on October 27 after rains in July and August damaged 3 million bales of cotton in Sindh, the countryΆs second-biggest producer.

Arrivals climbed 16 percent to 9.1 million bales since harvesting began in July, Chand said. Harvests in Punjab jumped 43 percent to 7.1 million bales from a year earlier, he said. Exports may reach 1 million bales this crop year, more than the 500,000 bales estimated by the countryΆs textile mills association, as the fibre from Pakistan is “the cheapest in the world right now,” Chand said.

Cotton is set for the first annual decline in three years at the New York futures market. Imports may total 500,000 bales as textile mills need long-staple cotton to meet export orders, Chand said.