June 30, 2006	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 3, 1427

KARACHI, June 29: Trading activity on the cotton market remained light as spinners were not inclined to chase prices further higher and generally played safe followed by reports of a modest decline in monthly exports to various countries.

But some spinners and mills were awaiting the announcement of proposed incentive package due to be announced along with the federal government but delayed for some technical reasons including some more additions to the original document, brokers said.According to mill sources the package should not be below Rs50bn as the textile sector had to operate in a competitive market including those whose overheads were far below the local ones.

“The spinners are expected to lift all the unsold stock lying in the ginneries, notably in southern Punjab as they will re-fix their buying strategy in the light of the proposed incentive package,” market sources said.

They said that spinners and mills would also go for the unsold stocks with the TCP in the coming tenders may be floated before the arrival of new crop from the lower Sindh cotton ginneries where picking operations for the new crop had already been resumed.

But the arrivals of new crop phutti were slow and may take some to be normal and enough to resume ginning operations. The recent rain in the lower Sindh cotton belt were suspended owing to rain since Sunday owing to wet cotton fields, market sources said. Ginners said the rates of new crop phutti were said to be around Rs1,100 per 40 kg but some of the leading growers were sending their produce on unfix basis and would fix the some time later having an overview of the foreign markets.

Reports from the world markets were a bit bullish followed by reports of resumption of buying by some of the major consumers under the lead of China and some others. New York cotton futures posted fresh rise of 0.80 and 0.63 cents per lb at 48.75 and 52.30 cents for both the matured July and the ruling new crop October settlements respectively.

Official spot rates on the other hand were firmly held at the overnight levels owing to slow activity in the ready section and where some of the deals from the central Sindh ginneries were done below them.

About 2,000 bales, of low-mic changed hands between Rs2,550 and Rs2,575 per maund depending on quality of lint.