KARACHI, Jan 4: Cotton market on Wednesday showed firm trend as ginners raised their asking prices followed by lower than expected arrivals of phutti into the ginneries for the last fortnight.

The arrival figures of 11.246m bales up to Jan 1,2006, showing a decline of over 14 per cent is considered a bullish factor for the future price outlook based on supply and demand factors.

Owing to an increase in export of textiles, the mills’ intake is billed around 11m bales plus and total crop of 12m bales plus will leave a gap of 0.3m bales to be bridged.

Apart from half a million bales lying in the TCP godowns to serve as a buffer stock to fill in supply gaps in case of a short crop, some of the leading spinners have already imported about 0.106m bales in July last year to meet any crop shortfall, market sources said.

Floor brokers said the current increase in New York cotton futures has made imports of lint more expensive and spinners and mills have to think twice before opting for fresh imports.

New York cotton futures are trading around 55.24 and 56.55 cent per lb, up 1.05 and 1.11 cents per lb for both the ruling March and distant May contracts respectively.

However, the market is expected to heat up during the post-Eid holiday trading sessions as ginners may further raise their selling price.

Some of the deals in the ready section were finalized as higher as Rs2,425 per maund but spinners curtailed their daily intake and did not make large fresh commitments beyond their export parity levels, dealers said.

Official spot rates did not show any change but are expected to be revised upward during the coming sessions in line with those at which ready business is being done.

Ready off-take was light totalling about 5,000 bales. These are: 600 bales, each Ahmedpur East and Sadiqabad at Rs2,400, 1,000 bales, Rahimyar Khan at 2,410, 1,000 bales, Khanpur at 2,410 to 2,425 and 1,200 bales Upper Sindh at 2,425.