December 16, 2006	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 24, 1427

KARACHI, Dec 15: Cotton market on Friday maintained a firm trend but physical business was light owing to weekly closure in the Punjab trading centres.

Floor brokers said stray lots, however, did change hands at uniform rate of Rs2,600, some of them were carried over from late Thursday evening dealings.

As a result, mill ready offtake fell to a modest total of 15,000 bales from the daily average of 40,000 bales. Some of the leading ginners entertaining higher price ideas held on to their unsold positions, they said.

“The activity is expected to shrink significantly owing to hike in fares by cargo haulers due to upcoming eid holidays,” they said, adding “most of them are busy in transporting sacrificial animals from the upcountry to the city cattle market at much higher rates,” they said.

The delivery problems for the local textile and spinning mills will be acute in the coming weeks partly because of higher freight rates and partly to an increase in prices, market sources said.

The spinners are expected to opt for the Sindh lint, notably from the upper Sindh ginneries as its quality is equal to that of fine lots from the southern Punjab cotton belt, they said.

Spinners are worried over the piling yarn stocks partly because of lower world prices and partly to lack of fresh export orders even from their traditional trading partners, they added.

Meanwhile, reports from the textile export front are not that encouraging and spinners and mills hope the revival of foreign demand by the middle of next month after new year holidays. Official spot rates were again held unchanged at the last level of Rs2,550 per maund well below those at which deals are finalised in the ready section.

New York cotton futures on the other hand recovered by 0.84 and 0.59 cents per lb at 55.18 and 56.09 cents for both the ruling March and the forward May contracts respectively.

Mill ready off-take was light totalling about 15,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals.

SINDH TYPE: 1,000 bales, Tando Adam at Rs2,400-2,525, 1,000 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,500-2,550 and 500 bales, Dadu at Rs2,525.

PUNJAB VARIETY: 2,000 bales each Rahimyar Khan and Sadiqabad, 1,000 bales each, Bahawalpur and Uch Sharif, D.G.Khan and some other stations at Rs2,600.