March 1, 2003	Saturday	Zul Hijjah 27, 1423

KARACHI, Feb 28: Physical activity on the cotton market on Friday partly slowed down as both mills and spinners took a technical breather after having made panic buying during the last two weeks.

However, there was no change in the ruling prices as some of the deals finalized in the ready section late in the evening were in the line with the overnight rates, the highest rate for the day being Rs2,550 for fine lots from a southern Punjab ginnery.

The relative slow down in mill buying was also attributed to sympathetic increase in yarn prices and the end-product users complain of price flare-up in lint and its negative impact on the ancillary industry, dealers said.

“Spinners may not have passed on the entire burden of higher lint prices to the end-product users but they are obliged to do it to share the higher cost of productions,” they added.

Market sources said exports of finished textiles might be affected in the coming week when new contracts were signed for the next quarter ending June 30, 2003.

Both the spinners and the ancillary industry are currently at the receiving end as rumours of a short crop below 10m bales have triggered speculative buying by the financially sound spinners, some of them had already covered their nearby annual consumption requirements well before the current increase, they added.

They also attributed the current slowdown to spinners absence as they were not inclined to make bigger commitments before the arrival figures of phutti are released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) during the next couple of days.

The general thinking is that the crop may be short but how much, it will be known after the figures are announced, they said.

For the third session in a row, official spot rates were firmly held at the previous levels, although in the ready section most of the deals were done well above them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand came in for renewed selling owing to switching of positions from the March to the ruling May settlements. Both the contracts fell by 0.85 and 1.16 cents per lb at 47.85 and 56.81 cents per lb, respectively.

Ready offtake was light totalling about 10,000 bales as under: 5,000 bales from Dhariki at Rs2.500; 2,800 bales, Khanpur at Rs2,550; 1,000 bales each from Bahawalpur and Yazman at Rs2,500.