15 January 2004	Thursday	22 Ziqa'ad 1424

KARACHI, Jan 14: Active trading was witnessed on the cotton market on Wednesday as spinners resumed their buying operations after ginners refused to lower their asking prices.

It was generally speculated that some of the weaker links among the ginners will lower their prices followed by reports of larger imports including 0.150m bales from India but there was no panic among the ginners who held on firmly to their unsold positions.

The import deals for 0.7m bales rumoured by some of the brokers may be on the higher side as the current arrivals at 0.289m bales since August last year, did not reveal the true story, says a ginner.

"Ginners know that the crop is short and spinners have to opt for the local lint as it is still cheaper as compared to prevailing world rates," brokers said adding as a result "no among them is in a hurry to liquidate his long position."

Most of the deals reported in the ready section after last couple of sessions relative lull were done according to the quality premiums, the lowest and the highest rates being Rs3,100 and Rs3,350 per maund without 15 per cent sales tax.

Unlike the previous sessions, some big-lot deals were also reported as section of leading spinners and mills covered their forward positions against foreign sales of cotton yarn.

Although rates of synthetic fibre widely used by textile sector to produce blended fabrics have shown a slight increase over the last week but they are still competitive at the current rate of lint, some dealers said.

According to market sources the share of synthetic fibres into the blended cloth and yarn has risen to 30 to 35 per cent, which in turn has cut the lint intake by the mills in the same proportions.

Official spot rates were, therefore, steadily held at the last levels as ginners held on to their positions. Ready offtake was active as about 15,000 bales changed hands. The following being some of the notable deals:

SINDH TYPE: 200 bales, Sanghar at Rs2,925 and 2,000 bales, Khairpur at Rs3,150.

PUNJAB VARIETY: 3,000 bales, Sadiqabad at Rs3,150 to Rs3,350, 2,000 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs3,200 to Rs3,250, 1,000 bales, DG Khan at Rs3,150 to Rs3,300, 1,000 bales, Haroonabad at Rs3,200 to Rs3,250 and 600 bales, Faqirwali at Rs3,250.