KARACHI, May 17: Firm trend was witnessed on the cotton market on Wednesday as haunted by fears of pressure on supplies spinners remained active buyers around the prevailing prices.

But ginners appear to be reluctant sellers amid market talk of further increase in prices based on short-supply before the arrival of new crop from the lower Sindh ginneries possibly by the first week of July, brokers said.

Although leading mills and spinners having enormous financial resources were not worried over the developing situation on the supply front despite sales by the TCP, their smaller links may face the problem of higher production costs and may lose their competitive edge on the sales front, they said.

Some of them have opted for inferior lots from the central Sindh ginners available at the lower levels for blending purposes with the polyester fibre to produce blended cloth and yarn for export markets, they added.

The interesting feature was that some of the private sector exporters preferred to sell their stocks meant for export to the local spinners as the profit margins are higher than the export.

Owing to unstable world cotton markets including the New York cotton futures, wide price fluctuations in the absence of China as a main buyer of lint, it is too risky to make forward deals with the foreign buyers, some exporters claimed.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the major cotton growing areas indicate that sowing of the new crop is being delayed in some of the areas as growers are awaiting the release of normal water flow from the canal system, to cater to irrigation water needs of the tail-enders.

Anticipating further increase in prices, ginners indulged in selling of retail lots rather than going in a big way amid market talk of an increase in prices in the weeks to come.

Official spot rates were, therefore, firmly held at the last levels, although some of the deals in the ready section were done below them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand suffered modest fall of 0.21 and 0.40 cents per lb at 51.39 and 54.30 for both the ruling July and the new crop October contracts, respectively.

The following are some of the deals, which gone through in the ready section: 1,000 bales, Gothki, Dharki and Mirpur Mathelo at Rs2,450, 600 bales, Kandiaro at 2,425 and 1,000 bales, various stations from exporters to mills at Rs2,500.