KARACHI, March 27: Cotton market on Tuesday maintained a firm trend as ginners were not inclined to lower their asking prices and firmly held onto their unsold positions.

Mill ready offtake, therefore, was again on the lower side as both sellers and buyers seem to have taken rigid positions in relation to selling prices.

Although spinners and mills were at the receiving end owing to a short crop and ginners were in a commanding position, the former were trying to balance their parity levels through imports from various countries, floor brokers said.

The falling daily mill intake shows that no one among the spinners is inclined to go beyond his parity levels as they have to compete on the world textile market amid tough competition from other producers, they said.

“I don’t think any price change in the near future as supply and demand factors are clearly in favour of the ginners,” says a leading broker.

New York cotton futures were stable around 53.00 cents per lb for the last couple of weeks and local ginners were deriving in part strength from the international market where the lint was still a bit expensive, he added.

Local lint prices around Rs2,700 per maund may be a bit higher but spinners still prefer local stuff for a number of reasons including ready supplies, they said.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged at the previous levels of Rs2,600 per maund but in the ready section most of the deals were done on quality basis.

New York cotton futures on the other hand showed fractional rise of 0.02 and 0.09 cents per lb at 53.29 and 54.35 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the forward July settlements respectively.

Ready offtake was modest amounting to 4,000 bales, the following being some notable deals: 2,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs2,640, 700 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs2,450, 600 bales, Sarhari at Rs2,550 and 1,000 bales, Vehari at Rs2,400-2,650.