April 3, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 30, 1424

KARACHI, April 2: The cotton market on Wednesday lacked normal trading interest as spinners and mills adhered to the sidelines most of the time signalling that they are not inclined to oblige ginners at their asking prices.

Stray lots of inferior types, however, did change hands as some of the spinners were willing to lift any lot below Rs2,600 per muand irrespective of the quality, dealers said.

The relative pause in the mill demand was also attributed to the proximity of the final crop figures and its likely impact on the prevailing prices, they said.

Floor brokers said the current standoff in the ready business was expected to continue until the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) came out with the arrival figures as spinners are expecting some improvement in the total. And that is perhaps why they are playing hide-and-seek with the ginners not allowing them to make firm opinion about the future price outlook, the added.

The interesting feature was that the official spot rates did not show any change for the last about a week, although leading spinners are willing to pay a premium for those lots which conform to their export parity level or those billed as contamination-free.

But most of the deals are being finalized below Rs2,650 per maund without 15 per cent sales tax as compared to official spot rate of Rs2,600 per maund.

Meanwhile, the inflow of imported lint from various sources was maintained at a modest pace despite reports of war in Iraq, levy of war risk surcharge and freight hike.

According to official figures 10,673 bales arrived at the Karachi Port during the last week of March (March 24 to 29), the total imports through the Karachi Port being 0.366m bales and 50,332 bales through the Port Qasim.

Cotton exports up to March 23 amounted to 0.198m bales, which also included 80,536 bales of the new crop and the balance of the old crop, bulk of which was physically shipped by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan.

New York cotton futures posted fresh fractional rise of 0.1 and 0.6 cents per lb at 57.72 and 58.99 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the forward July settlements, respectively.

Ready offtake was modest totalling about 4,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals: 1,000 bales, Khairpur at Rs2,515; 1,145 bales, Jampur at Rs2,600; and 1,000 bales, Bahawalpur at Rs2,650.