KARACHI, Jan 1: Cotton market opened the new year account on a firm note as ginners and spinners were locked in price war followed by conflicting reports about the size of the new crop.

Ginners appear to be in a dominating position and leading among them managed to sell some fine lots at the season’s highest rate of Rs2,200 per maund, without 15 per cent sales tax.

Spinners, mostly played safe apparently in a bid not to reinforce ginner perceptions about the future price outlook in case the production falls short of the target, dealers said.

Low daily offtake for the last couple of sessions reflects that spinners despite being terribly short of their mid-season stock positions are not in a hurry and are keeping a judicious balance between their demand and the prices, they added.

They said the future market trend will be known after spinners and mills resume their new year normal buying operations possibly during the next couple of sessions.

“We are awaiting the official arrival figures of phutti for the fortnight ended Dec 31, 2002, which will give a fair idea of the total crop”, spinners say adding “It will also set the future price trend”.

But the general thinking is that prices could rise from the current level during the next couple of weeks as supply and demand factors tell spinners may be at the receiving end.

“Higher world cotton prices and fears of below target local production could make the lint more expensive, having negative impact on the total textile exports”, market sources fear.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the upper Sindh and southern Punjab cotton belts indicate that arrivals of phutti have considerably slowed down as some of the leading growers are reportedly holding on to their stocks to push prices higher.

It was perhaps in this background that official spot rates were firmly held at the last levels, although in the ready section most of the deals were done well above them.

New York cotton futures suffered fresh pruning at 51.16 and 54.75 cents for both the ruling March and May settlements respectively, off 0.41 and 0.35 cents per lb.

Ready business was light totalling about 10,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals:

SINDH VARIETY: 900 bales, Nawabshah at Rs2,125, 200 bales, Sarhad, near Gothki at Rs2,200.