DHAKA, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh has set a target to increase cotton production five times by 2030, introducing new varieties and expanding cultivation areas, since the country appeared as the second largest consumer of the industrial crop.
"Cotton could be a major cash crop as we need to spend 3 billion USD every year for its import to meet its expanding demand in the textile industry," Cotton Development Board's additional director Md Fakhre Alam Ibne Tabib said, quoted by the official news agency BSS on Wednesday.
The country currently produces less than 0.2 million cotton bales (1 bale equals roughly 480 pounds) a year against the annual demand for 8.5 million bales, according to official statistics.
Against the backdrop of high demands, Bangladeshi textile and spinning mills and other users import cotton from India, the United States, several African and Central Asian nations, Australia, Brazil and Pakistan.
Tabib said they set the target to enhance the domestic cotton production to 1 million bales using newly invented high-yielding and hybrid varieties and using the vast low fertile barren lands in the country's southeastern hill region alongside some plain districts. ■