KARACHI, Oct 6: The Cotton market on Thursday consolidated the gains of last couple of sessions as official spot rates were firmly held at the previous levels, but the rumours of a short crop continue to haunt spinners and mills.

In physical trading bulk of the business in the Sindh type was finalized between Rs2,225 to Rs2,300 per maund depending on quality, while its Punjab counterpart was available between Rs2,275 and Rs2,300. The active ready off-take showed that the rates were in line with mills export parity levels.

The status quo on the price front reflected that the negative impact of the rumour of a short crop is well absorbed at least until the arrival figures for the current fortnight are released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA).

Although the textile sector is in a pretty comfortable position as far as its inventories are concerned, higher demand for Pakistan textiles on the world markets continues to inspire them to keep larger stocks to cover the forward sales.

“We are fully booked for the quarter ending Dec 31, 2005 and onward at competitive rates”, leading spinners said “any increase in rates or a short crop at this stage could upset our export target of $12 billion”.

After having purchased 12m bales from the ginners and a million bales from the TCP along with imports of 0.3m bales last year, spinners still may need the entire crop for the next financial year, market sources said.

The short crop may not hit their export projections, higher rates of lint could work against their future planning and forward sales, they said.

Official spot rates were, therefore, held unchanged, although most of the deals in the ready section were done well above the average quality rate.

New York cotton futures on the other hand recovered 0.90 and 0.86 cents at 52.45 and 53.91 cents per lb for both the ruling October and the forward December contracts respectively.

Mill ready off-take was on the higher side and totalled around 10,000 bales, the following being some of the important deals:

SINDH VARIETY: 300 bales, Sanghar at Rs2,250, 200 bales, each Tando Adam, and Shahdadpur at Rs2,275, 600 bales, Nawabshah at Rs2,275 to Rs2,300, 100 bales, Kot Ghulam Muhammad at Rs2,225, 500 bales, and Khipro at Rs2,235.