KARACHI, Dec 3: Cotton market on Tuesday maintained a firm trend as ginners raised their asking prices followed by reports of a substantial fall in arrivals of phutti into the ginneries.

Owing to coming Eid holidays picking operations of phutti have virtually come to an end and are expected to be resumed by the middle of the next week as by that time the post-Eid festivities will be over.

Despite delivery problems, ginners have raised their asking prices for the quality lint, bigger lots of which are claimed to be held on by the ginners to sell them at much higher rates during the coming weeks.

This was evident from a big deal of 3,500 bales of contamination-free lint from Rahimyar Khan, which was sold at Rs2,150 per maund on Tuesday to a local spinner.

A leading floor broker said fine lots are expected to fetch much higher prices during the coming weeks as the demand for the higher counts of cotton yarn is fairly active in the European markets.

He said the cotton situation, notably the size of the crop will be close to the final estimate after the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA), releases its phutti arrival figures for the fortnight ending Dec 15, 2002.

The mid-season figures will also end the current speculation about the size of the crop, which is now being used by some vested interests to meet their own ends, he added.

As the reports from the ginneries in the upcountry reaching here were not too encouraging, pre-holiday mood prevailed on the local market also as both buyers and sellers just tried to test the holding capacity of each other but never tried to indulge in physical business.

Spinners said it was of no use to buy lint before the long Eid holidays owing to delivery problems as cargo haulers are also not inclined to book fresh loads before holidays.

As a result, leading ginners and spinners just marked time discussing the political situation and its likely impact on trade and industry in the coming weeks if the current standoff continues.

But some local spinners who need immediate deliveries to run their mills during the next two days were a bit worried as the lint was available but no trucking, dealers said.

Official spot rates did not show any change for the third session but New York cotton futures suffered fresh setback of 0.20 and 0.37 cents per lb at 47.30 and 49.81 cents for both the ruling December and the distant March contracts respectively.

Ready offtake was modest around 4,000 bales as under: 300 bales, Sanghar at Rs1,975 and 3,500 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs2,150.