February 1, 2003	Saturday	Ziqa’ad 28, 1423

KARACHI, Jan 31: Cotton market on Friday maintained firm trend as spinners were not inclined to take even a technical breather followed by conflicting reports about the size of the crop.

Although all eyes are now focussed on the arrival figures of phutti into the ginneries for the fortnight ended Jan 31, 2003, there is a loud whispering about a substantial decline in arrivals according to unofficial reports.

Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) is expected to release the arrival figures possibly on Monday and they will possibly set the future market trend.

“Both fears of a short crop and pressure on future supplies haunted the mills and spinners”, says a leading broker adding “the problem is that if spinners indulge in panic buying, ginners raise their asking prices”.

And added to it is the strong presence of the private sector exporters who are out to cover their positions against forward sales of lint to Bangladesh and some Far Eastern buyers, he adds.

“Crop may or may not be that short as widely speculated, one thing appears certain a price flare-up may be around in sympathy with rising world prices”, some cotton analysts predict.

New York cotton futures on Thursday touched the 10-year high mark of 55.39 cents per lb for the May contract, up by 0.55 cents, it will have positive impact on the selling prices elsewhere, they added. The ruling March settlement was also quoted higher by 0.32 cents at 51.43 cents per lb.

“The breach of the 50-cent per lb barrier by the New York cotton futures always paves the way for an identical rise in prices in other surplus producing countries as it makes imports expensive and more demand for the local stuff”, some others said.

However, physical business was relatively slow owing partly to weekend considerations and partly to higher asking prices by the ginners, brokers said.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the southern Punjab cotton belt indicate that arrivals of phutti from the growers to the ginneries have almost dried up as most of the leading growers have sent leftover inferior stuff also.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged at the overnight levels but stray deals reported in the ready section were done above them.

Ready offtake was modest owing partly to a short Friday session and partly to transportation problems and amounted to 2,000 bales as under: 1,000 bales, upper Sindh, at Rs2,260 and 400 bales from the southern Punjab ginneries at around Rs2,250.