April 19, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 01, 1428

KARACHI, April 18: The standoff between the spinners and ginners on the price issue continued on Wednesday as ginners were in no mood to lower their asking prices. After a number of lean sessions stray lots, however, changed hands at the ginner options but some of the leading mills were said to have made active forward booking remained conspicuous by their absence, floor brokers said.

“Ginners appear to be in no worry as most of them have already met bank overdraft adjustment,” they said, adding “now they are in a commanding position and name their own selling prices”.

The textile sector was facing many problems on the export front and had slowed down their intake and no one among them was inclined to go beyond export parity level as indicated by the falling daily business, they said.

The perception that the talk of higher imports to make up the local crop shortfall seems to have no relevance to the prevailing scenario where supply and demand factors are setting the pace, market source said.

Meanwhile, reports reaching here from the lower Sindh cotton belt indicate the new crop sowing in the entire belt has almost completed and early sown plants are progressing well in the warm weather and sufficient irrigation water.

Market sources said pest attack on the tender cotton plants was minimised as warm weather kills the insects.

Official spot rates, therefore, did not show any change and were firmly held at the previous levels.

New York cotton futures on the other hand remained under pressure and fell by 0.65 and 0.40 cents at 49.73 and 51.60 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the forward July contracts respectively.

Mill ready off-take was light as only 3,000 bales from Rahimyar Khan areas changed hands at Rs2,800 per maund.