KARACHI, March 30: The cotton market on Wednesday witnessed active trading as some of the ginners tried to clear the backlog of inferior stuff before the release of latest lint figures by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association. Although quality and contamination-free lots, notably from the southern Punjab ginners, managed to get higher price of Rs2,325 per maund, the upper Sindh variety was available at Rs2,200-2,300, a decline of Rs25. Previously both were sold at par.

About 20,000 bales changed hands, reflecting that spinners and mills are watching the cotton situation from the sidelines and enter the market after the ginners tried to liquidate long positions in the inferior stuff.

Floor brokers said the latest figures of ginned cotton might not be on the higher side as they added only 55,000 bales to the previous total, and the current figure for the fortnight ending March 31, might be much lower.

“Spinners and mills are well aware of the developing situation on the cotton front and are not inclined to sit on the sidelines and lift all lots when offered around their export parity levels,” they said.

That is perhaps why the activity turns fairly brisk after the ginners enter the market and it remains dull in their absence and asking higher prices, they added.

But one thing is pretty clear that recent increase in the New York cotton futures has made foreign lint expensive for the spinners and their craze to grab the floating stocks is reflective of this fact, some others say.

Meanwhile, much talked about import deals for the foreign lint of about 0.7m bales contracted by the spinners and mills some two months back on forward basis are not backed by the objective conditions as so far no shipment has arrived at any of the ports.

Last year’s import figures up to October 2004 totalled 0.575m bales, which may supplement users’ existing stock positions if they were not consumed the same year, market sources said.

Official spot rates remained unchanged, but on the other hand New York futures showed modest fall of 0.38 and 0.49 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the distant July contract at 53.58, 54.90 cents, respectively.

The following are some of the important deals reported in the ready section: 2,000 bales, upper Sindh, at Rs2,200 to Rs2,300; 1,700 bales, Sarhari at Rs2,100 to Rs2,200; and 500 bales, Hingorja at Rs2,200.

From the southern Punjab, 2,000 bales each, Bahawalpur and Shujabad at Rs2,300; 2,000 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs2,200 to Rs2,325; and 577 bales, Ahmedpur East at Rs2,325.