08 February 2004	Sunday	16 Zilhaj 1424

KARACHI, Feb 7: The cotton market on Saturday ruled steady as ginners were not inclined to lower their asking prices owing to an expected pressure on ready supplies amid fears of a short crop.

Although official arrival figures for the fortnight ended Jan 31 are delayed because of Eid holidays, and possibly may be released by the next week by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA), spinners and ginners have already a fair idea of the total crop, local brokers said.

For the last about two weeks, spinners have considerably slowed down their daily offtake apparently hoping decline in prices but ginners are holding on to their unsold positions with a view to selling them at much higher prices, they said.

"The crop figure may not touch the official crop projection of 10m bales plus," claims a ginner. "The lower figure below the target could well mean further increase in prices during the next couple of months."

The battle of wits is continuing between the spinners and the ginners and so far the latter have an upper hand on the strength of lower crop ideas.

According to a leading cotton broker, some of the spinners and mills had made forward deals for about 25,000 bales from various sources after New York cotton futures declined below the 70-cent per lb mark recently.

But ginners are not worried over the import figures knowing fully well that spinners have to opt for the local stuff before the new crop arrives as it is still cheaper as compared to foreign one.

New York cotton futures, which generally form the basis of a benchmark for sale and purchase all over the world on Friday were quoted at 69.07 and 71.37, up 0.57 and 0.72 points for both the maturing March and the forward May settlements, respectively.

"Local lint prices may not touch the high mark of Rs3,600 per maund hit late last year, they are expected to remain firm throughout the remaining part of the current season because of supply and demand factors," brokers said.

Meanwhile, according to official mill figures, mill consumption touched the high mark of 11.440m bales, during the last season, from Sept 1, 2002 to Aug 31, 2003. Adding another half a million bales consumed by the unorganized sector, the total come to 12m bales.

The average monthly consumption figure shows a substantial improvement over the previous at 0.950m bales, which indicates steady sailing both on the local and foreign fronts as far as sales of cotton yarn are concerned.

Official spot rates were, therefore, held unchanged at the last levels amid a thinly traded session as buyers and sellers were still in post-holiday mood.

Ready offtake was modest totalling 3,900 bales, from a Punjab ginnery done at Rs3,300 per maund.