March 4, 2006	Saturday	Safar 3, 1427

KARACHI, March 3: Trading activity on the cotton market remained at a low ebb as buyers and sellers kept to the sidelines owing partly to delivery problems and partly to country-wide strike.

However, reports coming from the southern Punjab cotton belt indicate some of the leading spinners and mills lifted stray lots of fine lint around Rs2,575 per maund, dealers said.

Unlike the complete shutdown of the city markets owing to thin attendance because of transport problems, the upper Sindh and southern Punjab markets were open for forward deals, some others said.

Some of the deals were meant for delivery on Saturday (March 4), while others by the next week depending on the selling prices and quality of lint in trade, they added.

They said although major trading centres remained closed, some of the ginners managed to clinch deals in line with their asking prices for the fine varieties.

Fortnightly arrival figures were delayed owing to strike but they are expected to be released by Saturday, which will have a positive impact on the prices owing to reported fall in phutti arrivals, market sources said.

However, despite lower crop ideas ginners and mills are not in a hurry and are indulging in “regulated buying” to keep prices within the current levels, they said.

“It was for the first time that spinners managed to keep prices within their export levels and at no stage indulged in panic-buying in the backdrop of a lower crop”, they added.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged at the overnight levels but stray deals were done above them, brokers said.

While no deal was reported on the local market, some of the brokers claim about 5,000 bales changed hands in the upcountry ginneries.