MULTAN - The arrival of cotton bales in ginning factories has observed 22.4 per cent increase in the country compared to corresponding period (last year), disclosed a fortnightly break up issued by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association here on Monday. As per the break up, a total of 658 ginning factories received 11,930,794 cotton bales till January 1 across the country while number of bales received by the factories during the corresponding period last year was 9,744,546. Thus an increase of 2,186,248 bales is observed in the country so far. The Balochistan province stood atop the list with highest ratio of increase in the crop as the cotton arrival at the ginning factories of Balochistan registered 169.17pc increase followed by Sindh with 50.16 per cent and Punjab 11.92pc. The ginning factories in Balochistan received 21,983 bales till January 1, 2009 with an increase of 13,816 bales. Similarly, Punjab received 7,905,873 bales with a rise of 841,747 bales and Sindh 4,024,921 bales with 1,344,501 bales increase. The sale of ginned cotton bales has also observed hike as 10,663,950 bales have been sold in entire country so far compared to 7,784,374 bales of last year, making a difference of 2,879,576 bales while as many as 953,410 bales are still lying unsold in the ginning factories. The ginning factories have so far sold 9,946,141 bales to the textile mills while 717,809 bales are sold to the exporters.