KARACHI, Dec 6: Cotton market on Wednesday maintained firm trend as prices were again quoted on the higher side followed by reports of interruption in ginning operations owing to Monday’s rain in the entire cotton belt.

Floor brokers said fears that the rain water may have damaged the quality of lint forced spinners and mills to lift all the pre-rain lint even at the higher levels.

Although the post-rain ginning operations are still to resume in most of the areas, quality perceptions have gripped the textile sector as was reflected by higher ruling prices, they said.

Market sources said the quality of lint ginned from the rain-soaked phutti gets damaged both in terms of staple length and fibre strength and is counted as inferior to spin low-counts of cotton yarn.

Generally the newly arrived stocks of phutti are stored in heaps in open plinths and it is pretty difficult to cover them in a snap rain-spell, they said.

In cases, the colour of the wet phutti turns yellow if ginners did not take steps to get them dried up in the sun after digging the massive heaps, they said.

That is perhaps why spinners are out to grab the floating stock of pre-rain lint, which in turn is keeping prices on the higher side amid brisk activity.

Official spot rates did not show any change and were firmly held at the overnight level of Rs2,525 per maund for average quality but fine lots were done around Rs2,600 per maund.

New York cotton futures on the other hand showed fractional decline of 0.35 and 0.07 cents per lb at 49 and 53.39 cents for both the maturing December and the forward March contracts, respectively.

Mills ready off-take was maintained at the higher side totalling 20,000 bales as under:

SINDH VARIETY: 1,000 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs2,400 to 2,450, 1,000 bales, Tando Adam at 2,350 to 2,400, 400 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,450 and 400 bales, Daur at 2,400.