KARACHI, Feb 9: Trading on the cotton market on Friday was maintained on the higher side as both mills and spinners remained active buyers around the current levels.

Floor brokers said the chief factor behind the sustained mill buying was a price differential of Rs200 per maund between the fine and inferior lots, which was in line with their export parity levels.

While low-mic lots were sold as low as Rs2,325, fine lots from the upper Sindh and southern Punjab ginneries continue to fetch season’s highest rate so far above Rs2,625, they said.

The notable feature was that most of lots came in for trading were big ones as retailers remained conspicuous by their absence. But some others were inclined to get out of the market after having sold their odd lots even at Rs2,450.

Spinners said continued fall in New York cotton futures for the last couple of sessions also raised hopes that further decline caused partly by falling speculative trading and partly to the absence of foreign buying could tilt the price balance in their favour.

“The industry has to import a substantial quantity of lint from various sources including India,” they said, adding “if New York futures fall below the 50-cent per lb level during the next couple of weeks, imports will be competitive”.

However, spinners are not inclined to take risks about their future supplies and continued to lift all the lots offered by ginners, which fall within their export parity levels.

There was, however, no change in the official spot rates, which were again quoted at Rs2,525 per maund, although they were a bit higher of some of the deals finalised in the ready section.

New York cotton futures on the other hand suffered fresh fall of 0.59 and 0.78 cents per lb at 52.41 and 52.94 cents for both the ruling March and the distant May contracts respectively.

Ready off-take was modest totalling about 10,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals:

SINDH TYPE: 1,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs2,600, 2,000 bales, Khairpur at Rs2,435, 4,000 bales, Kandiaro at Rs2,460 and 500 bales at Rs2,500 and 800 bales, Dadu at Rs2,460.