November 24, 2006	Friday	Ziqa'ad 2, 1427

KARACHI, Nov 23: Cotton prices on Thursday maintained their upward drive on active mill demand amid fears of pressure on supplies in the backdrop of a short crop.

Floor brokers said reports that spinners may have to import about 2m bales of lint to makeup local crop shortfall was said to be one of the aiding factor fuelling price flare-up.

Most of the deals in the Punjab variety were finalised at the season’s so far highest level of Rs2,500 per maund and brokers said prices could rise further based on supply and demand factors.

“The price war has started among the leading textile groups to grab the floating stock of lint,” they said, adding “prices could rise to any high if sanity did not return and the current panic among them continues”.

Any further increase in price could have a negative impact on the export front, rendering the textile uncompetitive on the world markets, they fear.

But on the other hand ginners are eyeing the price level of Rs2,600 during the next month as a considerable fall in arrivals of phutti into the ginneries signals that they may have dried up in some of the areas in the central Punjab cotton belt where picking operations starts a bit earlier.

But some others said that leading growers were holding back their stocks to push prices further higher in apparent effort to recoup early losses after prices had declined to Rs1,050 per 40 kg.

Official spot rates were again held at the last level of Rs2,425 per maund but in the ready section most of the deals in fine types were done well above them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand rose by 0.79 and 0.49 cents at 47.50 and 52.15 cents per lb for both the ruling December and the distant March contracts respectively.

Mill ready off-take was on the higher side totalling about 50,000 bales, following being some of the notable deals:

SINDH TYPE: 1,000 bales, Tando Adam at Rs2,360, 1,000 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,350, 1,000 bales, Sanghar at Rs2,325-2,400, 1,000 bales, Nawabshah at Rs2,325-2,375, 1,000 bales, Khairpur at Rs2,400, 1,000 bales, Dadu at Rs2,435 and 2,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs2,475.

PUNJAB VARIETY: 5,000 bales each Ahmedpur East and Rahimyar Khan, 4,000 bales, Khanpur, 2,000 bales each Jalalpur, Sadiqabad, Rajanpur, Uch Sharif and Multan at Rs2,500 and 2,000 bales, D.G. Khan at Rs2,475- 2,500.