May 11, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1427

KARACHI, May 10: Cotton market on Wednesday showed steady trend despite reports that the TCP has floated a fresh tender for the sale of 30,000 bales of lint.

Unlike, the previous tenders local spinners did not rush for the TCP lots and mostly played cool and some of them opted for the stuff held by the ginners, brokers said.

Bids against the TCP tender will open on May 16, and market sources predict better prices, notably from the foreign buyers for all grades owing to higher New York futures.

Although local spinners and mills are claimed to be still short of their annual consumption target, leading among them may go beyond their export parity levels and prefer to buy from the ginners, who still hold an unsold stock of around 0.8m bales.

As a result, in physical trading, some of the deals were finalised at the season’s highest rate of Rs2,500 per maund depending on the quality of lint in trade, they added.

Spinners said they are willing to pay a bit more for fine lots, which they need to produce higher counts of cotton yarn but ruled out the possibility to go beyond the high limit of Rs2,500 per maund.

Meanwhile, reports coming from some parts of the Sindh cotton belt indicate that sowing of new cotton crop, which is expected to be resumed from May 15, may be delayed owing to reported pressure on irrigation water supplies.

New York cotton futures posted fresh rise of 0.19 and 0.35 cents at 51.13 and 53.85 cents per lb for the ruling July and forward October contracts, respectively.

Local official spot rates on the other hand consolidated overnight gains and were quoted unchanged at Rs2,425.

Ready off-take was light totalling 2,000 bales including 1,000 bales Mailsi at Rs2,500 and 200 bales, Sadiqabad at 2,425.