11 April 2004	Sunday	20 Safar 1425

KARACHI, April 10: Cotton prices on Saturday suffered a modest decline of Rs25 per maund as some of the ginners lowered their asking prices followed by reports of larger import of foreign lint by the mills and spinners.

But there were no fresh buying offers both from the mills and spinners amid reports that some of the spinners are offering to sell imported lint purchased at much higher rates, brokers said.

According to unconfirmed reports, the spinners had made forward deals for a substantial quantity followed by reports of an extensive damage to the crop by the late pest attack and local price hike, they said, adding "but easing of local prices from the all-time peak levels during the last couple of weeks has made imported stuff a bit expensive, having a negative impact on their export parity levels."

The interesting feature is that local prices are much lower than the foreign one and some of the leading spinners having more lint than their annual consumption needs are also seller but failed to find many willing buyers even on deferred payments.

"There is lint both local and foreign but not many buyers as the spinners and mills seem to have caught in the web of their own error of judgement," one broker jokingly said.

Reports of declines in some varieties of ready garments may be because of price factor, which may have made export a bit expensive, he said.

However, spinners' presence in the market as sellers of lint has put the ginners in an awkward position as there are not many buyers for their unsold stocks, even at the lower rates, dealers said.

As a result, ready business has fallen to a low ebb for the last couple of weeks, although some brokers claim that spinners are making direct purchases from the ginners at unspecified prices.

Arrival figures for the fortnight ending April 15, will show how much unsold stocks are lying with the ginners and the intake of the mills during this period.

Meanwhile, private sector exporters have registered 0.166m bales of new crop lint with the Export Promotion Bureau up to April 5, 2004, for exports against which they have made physical shipments of 0.141m bales up to the month of February.

Official spot rates were lowered by Rs25 per maund at Rs2.875 in line with the prevailing rates.

Ready offtake was at a low ebb as till late in the evening leading brokers did not report any deal, both in the Sindh and Punjab varieties.