April 15, 2007	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 26, 1428

KARACHI, April 14: Cotton market on Saturday maintained a bullish outlook as ginners appear to be in no hurry to sell their unsold positions hoping apparently fresh increase in prices.

Unlike the previous session, mill ready offtake was a bit slow partly owing to weekend considerations and allied delivery problems and partly to higher asking prices, floor brokers said.

However, spinners and mills were not inclined to go beyond the highest level of Rs2,800 per maund but ginners were holding on to their fine lots to sell beyond this level at the fag-end of the current season, they said.

As a result, physical activity was highly erratic reflecting a battle of wits between the sellers and the buyers, although mills would be at the receiving end in the final analysis, some others said.

Some of the leading spinners said that the yarn intake of the ancillary industry was steadily increasing showing improvement on the export front of textiles and made-ups.

Although unsold stocks of cotton yarn held by the textile industry are still on the higher side to which billion of rupees are tied, the recent pick up in local demand has raised hopes a substantial relief in the coming weeks on the inventories, they said.

Meanwhile, information originating from some official sources indicates that spinners and mills have imported about 68,000 bales of lint from various sources during February to make the shortfall in the local crop.

The total import of lint cotton during the current season since August 2006 rose to 0.273m bales and other consignments against the forward contracts were steadily arriving in, market sources said.

It was perhaps in this background that official spot rates were firmly held at the previous level of Rs2,725 per maund.

New York cotton futures on the other hand posted fresh fractional rise of 0.25 and 0.09 cents for both the ruling May and the distant July contracts at 51.37 and 52.90 per lb respectively.

Mill ready offtake was light totaling 2,000 bales as under: 1,200 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs2,800 and 200 bales, upper Sindh also at this rate and 400 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,700.