May 4, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 5, 1427

KARACHI, April 3: Trading activity on the cotton market on Wednesday was relatively slow as spinners and mills remained busy with the TCP tender business for the sale of fresh lot of all varieties.

Floor brokers said most of the spinners and mills actively participated in the tender as their buying offers far exceeded the actual bales for sales. About 67,000 purchase offers were submitted, more than double the bales on sales.

Buyers offered to buy fine lots at Rs2,427 per 40 kg, while some of the foreign bidders offered to buy them at 49.79 cents per lb, which is considered a competitive rates in line with the prevailing world prices.

Offers for lower grades were said to be between Rs2,256 and Rs2,325, while foreign bids for the same were 43.08 and 46.01 cents for grade-3 and grade-4, respectively.

According to spinners, the TCP price evaluation committee will decide by Thursday about acceptance or rejection of the bids both from local and foreign buyers, but indications are that most of them are expected to be accepted in the backdrop of the prevailing world market scenario.

Meanwhile, the market awaits the final crop figures for the fortnight ending April 30, which could have positive impact on the prevailing prices based on the unsold figures lying with ginners.

New York cotton futures failed to hold on to their previous gains and were marked down by 0.90 and 0.66 cents at 49.25 and 50.91 cents per lb, respectively, on speculative selling.

Local official spot rates on the other hand did not show any change in the absence of active ready offtake.

Ready offtake was modest totalling 4,000 bales as under: 500 bales, Tando Adam at Rs2,280; and 3,000 bales, Khanpur at Rs2,475.