December 19, 2002	Thursday	Shawwal 14, 1423

KARACHI, Dec 18: Trading on the cotton market on Wednesday was relatively slow as spinners and mills kept to the sidelines most of the time apparently having a look at their inventories before resuming fresh buying.

Unlike the previous several sessions when they resorted to near-panic buying, their sudden absence from the market has raised many questions including to forestall further rise in prices.

For the last couple of sessions, notably after the Eid holidays, both spinners and mills have been active buyers as their daily intake fluctuated between 40,000 to 50,000 bales, dealers said.

“It may be a tactical mill withdrawal in a bid to unnerve ginners holding long positions”, one broker said “but ginners seem to be in no mood to indulged in hasty selling at this stage”.

Private sector exporters have, however, become more active and are said to be in the market in a big way and covering their forward positions at the current rates.

“Reports of crop shortages in the major producing areas including the Central Asian states, China and India, world importers are opting from the local lint owing to competitive rates”, market sources said.

The other positive development is that the local lint is cheaper by Rs.200 to 300 per maund as compared to the prevailing world rates, they added.

Floor brokers said spinners have to work within the prevailing world price and supply outlook as it may be pretty difficult to contain a possible price flare-up after January next year.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the southern Punjab cotton belt indicate that the third picking is almost complete in some of the areas both central Punjab and beyond Bahawalpur.

But growers are not holding on to their stocks because of quality reasons and dumping them into ginneries mostly on unfix basis, dealers said.

Market sources said growers are making all out efforts to make final picking before the fog overtakes the Punjab plains as it does in January and February if there are no winter rain.

However, there are no reports of a major quality differential in the phutti now being processed in the ginneries of southern Punjab.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged but New York cotton futures showed a modest decline of 0.27 and 0.9 cents per lb at 49.33 and 53.60 cents per lb respectively.

Ready offtake was light as till late in the evening about 5,000 bales from the southern Punjab ginneries changed hands between Rs2,075 to Rs2,125 per maund.