July 28, 2002	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 17,1423

KARACHI,July 27: The weekend session on the cotton market finished on a cheerless note as spinners and mills stayed away eyeing fine lots currently under sale by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan.

While the current crop was totally neglected for the time being, stray new crop lots from the lower Sindh ginneries changed hands at the higher levels.

However, the mood of the ginners reflects they are not inclined to lower their asking prices for the new crop below Rs1,900 per maund and that is perhaps why not many deals are being finalized in the ready section.

In sympathy with higher new crop rates, current crop is also fetching competitive prices for the last about two weeks, enabling the market to maintain a firm outlook.

Floor brokers said the ready offtake might remain sluggish until the TCP completed its current sales drive to both local and foreign buyers as stock of lint held by it was said to be of fine and mostly contamination-free lint.

The fact that some of the spinners upped their bids to Rs2,000 per 40kg indicates that the quality of lint under sale is much better and most suited to spin higher counts of cotton yarn for export the markets, they added.

According to the market sources, some of the spinners had already revised upward their bids as suggested by the TCP high-ups and there were reasons to believe that some more offers might be accepted possibly by the next week.

The TCP has also asked the foreign bidders to further increase their buying prices and indicated to sell a substantial quantity to them if the bids are in line with their benchmark prices.

Meanwhile, the export sales rose to 0.273m bales against which 0.197m bales have already been physically shipped up to July 23, 2002. The steady pace of shipments indicates that exporters are judiciously meeting their deadlines.

Bulk of the foreign sales went to the credit of private sector exporters who have sold so far followed by the TCP.

On July 23 and 27, both the private sector exporters and the TCP registered fresh export contracts for 573 and 1,300 bales, respectively, which means the demand for the local lint is fairly active amid fears of global shortage of the new crop.

Official spot rates remained pegged at the last close but on the other hand New York cotton futures showed modest decline of 0.19 and 0.12 cents per lb at 45.75 and 47.43 cents both the ruling October and the distant December settlements, respectively.

Ready business was light totalling 1,000 bales of new crop from the lower Sindh ginneries as under: 600 bales of Mirpurkhas at Rs1,950 and 300 bales of Pithoro at Rs1,940.