May 27, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 24,1424

KARACHI, May 26: Trading on the cotton market on Monday resumed on a cheerless note as price of ginners and spinners remained poles apart sans supply and demand factors.

“The venue of physical trading has shifted to inter-mill dealings as spinners holding sufficient stocks beyond their annual consumption needs obliged to bail out their hard-pressed counterparts from the current impasse,” secretary of Karachi Cotton Brokers Association Naseem Usman said.

According to him, some of the leading spinners’ groups had built up fairly long positions earlier in the season at much lower rates despite predictions of another bumper crop, which now ensure a fair margin of profit.

“It is more profitable now to sell lint at the current levels than converting it into cotton yarn,” claims a leading spinner referring to the falling prices of cotton yarn on the foreign markets owing to Sars-related worries of the Far Eastern importers.

Spinners say not only the prices of cotton yarn have declined during the last about one month, but also demand from some traditional buyers. “The piling of unsold stocks has limited our market operations,” one spinner said.

Most of the spinners having more lint stocks than required to see the current season through are, therefore, indulging in inter-mill dealings slightly below the ginners’ asking prices.

“Inter-mill dealings may well serve the twin purpose,” another spinner says, adding “on the one hand it keeps the wheels moving of an associate Aptma member and un-nerve the ginners on the other.”

But ginners, who still hold an unsold stock of about 0.250m bales mostly for fine lots, are not inclined to be outwitted at this time of the season despite the new crop is just a month away on the perception that spinners still need a lot of lint to cover their forward positions.

On the export front, a private sector party sold a modest lot of 240 bales to some foreign buyer, the total sales up to May 25, being 0.186m bales, including 54,148 bales of the old crop.

There was no change in the official spot rates, which remained pegged at the weekend level for want of ready demand.

Ready offtake totalled about 12,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals: 10,000 bales, MNH-Sawgin, mill-to-mill at Rs2,525; 600 bales, Sadiqabad at Rs2,550; and 400 bales, Mehrabpur at Rs2,575.