June 19, 2003	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 18, 1424

KARACHI, June 18: Cotton market on Wednesday showed firm trend as ginners raised their asking prices for the new crop followed by reports of overnight rain in some of the areas of the lower Sindh cotton belt.

But spinners, who had recently resumed their new crop buying around Rs2,350 per maund without 15 per cent sales tax and were not inclined to go beyond their export parity levels, kept to the sidelines.

“Perception that the rain will delay picking operations at least for a week because of rain as fields get wet and the moisture content in phutti increases growers temporarily suspend operations,” market sources said.

The current wave of rain in the Punjab cotton belt where the sowing in some of the areas has just been completed may have damaged the newly grown tender cotton plant and there is a talk of resowing in some of the areas in the southern Punjab cotton belt.

The untimely monsoon rain, higher world cotton rates, small carryover stocks with the ginners of the current crop, all point to a bullish market in the coming sessions, they said.

After having imported substantial quantity of foreign lint over the last six months to make up the local crop, spinners are worried over the developing situation on the lint supply front.

“It is possibly not feasible to remain competitive on the foreign textile markets after having purchased foreign lint around 60 cents per lb,” spinners claim. “All eyes are now focused on the local supplies, both the carryover unsold stocks of 0.150m bales of the current crop and the new crop, which is also getting expensive each session in sympathy with the foreign markets.”

According to the market sources, spinners still need about 0.2m bales in addition to unsold stock lying with the ginners to meet their annual consumption needs.

All eyes are now focused on a good new crop, notably from the central and southern Punjab cotton belts and decline in the projected production could disturb the entire textile sector, they fear.

New York cotton futures rose further by 0.93 and 0.60 cents per lb at 56.60 and 58.55 for both the ruling July and the new crop October settlements, respectively.

There was, however, no change in the official spot rates, which were held unchanged at the last levels.

Ready offtake was light as till late in the evening about 500 bales of both the new and old crops changed hands around the previous rates of Rs2.350 and Rs2,400 per maund.