December 14, 2006	Thursday	Ziqa'ad 22, 1427

KARACHI, Dec 13: Physical business on the cotton market on Wednesday was maintained on the higher side as spinners and mills continued to build-up long positions fearing fresh rise in prices.

Another 40,000 bales including some big-lot of 4,000 to 5,000 bales changed hands as leading spinners having enormous funds at their disposal were virtually trying to grab the unsold stocks at the prevailing prices, brokers said.

Bulk of the business was again confined to the southern Punjab lint known for its fine quality, most of which changed hands around Rs2,625, they said.

Ginners said the main priority of the mills and spinners is to cover positions in the quality lint, which they needed to spin higher counts of cotton yarn for both foreign and local use.

Although there were not many buyers for the inferior lots, they were quoted around Rs2,500 per maund and some of the spinners purchased modest quantities for blending purposes.

“Some of the leading spinners have also increased the ratio of polyester fibre to produce blended cotton yarn for export markets in apparent effort to curtail production costs to compete in the world textile market,” says a leading ginner.

The current panic buying reflects quality war among the spinners and mills as far as their total consumption demand is concerned a good part of it will be taken away by the polyester fibre, he added.

Official spot rates were, therefore, firmly held unchanged at the overnight level of Rs2,550, while most of the deals in the ready section were done well above them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand posted fresh fractional gains of 0.12 and 0.21 cents for both the ruling May and forward July contracts at 55.62 and 56.85 cents per lb respectively.

Mill off-take was fairly brisk totalling about 40,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals.

SINDH VARIETY: 1,000 bales, Tando Adam at Rs2,450-2,490, 2,000 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,475-2,540, 1,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs2,625 and 500 bales, each Dadu and Sinjoro at Rs2,500-2,535.

PUNJAB TYPE: 3,000 bales, Noorpur Nauranga at Rs2,625-2,640, 5,000 bales each, Rahimyar Khan and Sadiqabad, 3,000 bales, Ahmedpur East and 2,000 bales, Uch Sharif at Rs2,600-2,625, 4,000 bales, Bahawalpur 2,000 bales, each Rajanpur,D.G.Khan and Mirpur Dewan at Rs2,600, 400 bales, Sahiwal and 600 bales, Mian Channu at Rs2,500.