KARACHI, June 18: Trading on the cotton market resumed on a firm note as spinners and mills indulged in maiden post-budget big-lot business sans the 15 per cent sales tax.

The notable feature of the day's trading was that 200 bales of new crop lint ginned from Sindh phutti was sold at the highest price of Rs3,050 per maund without sales tax, which has been withdrawn in the new budget.

"It is normal that some of the central Punjab ginners don't like to sit idle and purchase phutti from the lower Sindh cotton belt soon after picking operations resume here and market the new crop much earlier than their counterparts in Sindh," brokers said.

They said ginners from the Sahiwal, Burewala and some other stations resumed operations much earlier after lifting phutti from the Sindh traders and generally sold it at the higher levels.

"But lower Sindh ginners are not inclined to take any risk despite the fact that phutti starts arriving in their ginneries on a modest scale in late May", they said "some of them do sign forward deals for delivery in mid-July and early August".

Phutti rates in the lower Sindh ginneries were being quoted between Rs1,300 and Rs1,400 per 40 kg but most of the ginners were keeping it on unfixed basis owing to uncertain future price outlook.

Some of the spinners resumed their buying operations for the local lint after further decline in New York cotton futures was halted and prices recovered from the current lows on speculative buying.

Both the contracts were quoted higher by 0.76 and 0.25 cents per lb at 52.29 and 54.00 cents for July and new crop October contracts, which had touched their 20-year lows during the last couple of days.

Two big fine lots from the southern Punjab ginneries changed hands at Rs3,150, which brokers said, indicated that spinners had the capacity to pay more to cover their forward sales of finished products.

Meanwhile, lint import figure touched the record figure of 1.894m bales up to April 30, and market sources claim another 0.2m bales were on their way. Some others claimed that the import figure could touch the high mark of 2.5m bales as mill consumption had shown a tremendous growth during the current year.

There was, however, no change in the official spot rates, which remained pegged at Rs3,050 per maund. Ready offtake was modest and totalled 5,000 bales as under: 2,000 bales, each Rahimyar Khan and Khanpur at Rs3,150, 600 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs3,140 and 200 bales, new crop ginned from Sindh phutti at Rs3,050.