July 05, 2006	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 8, 1427

KARACHI, July 4: Cotton market on Tuesday lacked normal trading interest as buyers and sellers kept to the sidelines apparently awaiting the arrival of new crop from the lower Sindh cotton belt.

However, spinners were not thinking of to re-entering the import trade of lint as local supplies both from the TCP and the ginners were said to be sufficient to meet their nearby needs before the normal arrival of the new Sindh crop.

According to market sources ginners were still holding an unsold stock of 0.150m bales mostly of fine variety and the TCP around 0.125m bales.

But spinners say they would need much more lint to cover their forward deals for yarn for the current quarter ending Sept 30 to cater to the Far Eastern markets.

“There is a strong demand for the local cotton yarn in the Far Eastern markets, notably Hong Kong and we have to meet our shipment deadlines well in time,” spinners said.

Rates being offered by Far Easter buyers are fairly attractively and are on the higher side as compared to our other traditional importers of cotton yarn, notably in the Muslim world, they added.

Some leading spinners are eyeing an increase of 20pc in yarn exports to some of these markets as fresh orders are still pouring in.

New York cotton futures suffered fresh setback of 0.75 and 0.95 cents per lb for both the matured July and the ruling October settlements at 49.00 and 51.00 cents per lb respectively.

There was, however, no change in the local official spot rates, which were held unchanged at Rs2,600 per maund.

Ready off-take was light as till late in the evening a deal of 200 bales from a Vehari ginnery was reported at Rs2,575. But some other brokers also reported that 2,000 bales from the central Sindh cotton belt also changed hands around Rs2,600.