February 11, 2006	Saturday	Muharram 12, 1427

KARACHI, Feb 10: Steady conditions prevailed on the cotton market when trading resumed on Friday. Spinners and some exporters moved into the ring to meet their immediate future needs but prices remained firm at the previous level.

Despite the fact that the crop size is now gradually firming up and it will not even touch the official estimate of 12.5 million bales, the spinners and mills seemed to be in no hurry to go for panic buying.

Consequently, cotton prices remained stable at the previous level, with the Sindh variety being quoted between Rs2,300 and Rs2,575 per maund depending on quality premium.

Similarly, the Punjab variety also somewhat remained at the previous level and was being quoted in the range of Rs2,350 to Rs2,575 per maund. Phutti prices continue to stay firm at around Rs850 to Rs1,125 per 40 kg for Sindh and Rs850 to Rs1,200 for Punjab.

As the arrivals of phutti from fields have started to dwindle, ginning factories in both Sindh and Punjab began to close down.

According to market sources, picking of the current season crop was likely to end up earlier and would not go beyond mid-March.

However, cotton analysts feel that the government should not sell TCP stocks to foreign buyers and rather that unload this quantity of over 270,000 bales in the domestic market to ease the pressure on demand for cotton.

Market analysts believe that prices will not go higher as the mills still have substantial stocks to meet their near future requirements. Besides, steady prices in the international market also help in keeping pressure on the domestic price structure.

There was no change in the KCA spot rates and on ready market very few transactions materialized on Friday.