KARACHI, May 16: Trading on the cotton market on Monday resumed on dull note but by mid-session it picked up modestly as some of the local spinners managed to buy a number of inferior lots. Reports coming in from the southern Punjab cotton belt also indicate that ginners are busy in mopping operations after selling odd lots to some the central Punjab spinners, brokers said.

Some of the private sector exporters were also busy in covering operations against their forward sales but there was no matching offer from the ginners as most of them had already exhausted their unsold stock, they said. Meanwhile, reports originating from market sources said the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) has successfully sold the entire quantity of lint specified in its third auction on May 14 at a competitive price.

All the bales, totalling 62,500 bales, were purchased by the local spinners, 53,000 bales at Rs2,321 per maund and 9,500 bales from Sanghar godwons at Rs2,200, they said. Although the TCP has sold about 0.3m bales so far in the last couple of auctions, it has to go a long way to sell a massive quantity of about 1.3m bales, minus the buffer stock of 0.3m bales.

Floor brokers said the interesting feature was that spinners and mills were active buyers and had apparently outwitted foreign bidders owing perhaps to higher reference prices. “Spinners and mills are said to be in the process of covering their forward positions against foreign sales of textiles and they may still need a lot of supplies to honour their export commitments,” they said.

Official spot rates, therefore, were firmly held at the last levels. Ready off-take was light as till late in the evening 2,500 bales of small lots changed hands depending on quality, the lowest and the higher rates being at Rs2,000 to Rs2,200 per maund.