KARACHI, June 4: Cotton prices on Monday eased further as some of ginners lowered their asking prices apparently to get out of the market before the federal budget. For the second session in a row, official rates were lowered by Rs25 per maund at Rs2.600 for average quality of lint but brokers claimed fine types are still quoted around Rs2,600 per maund.

Floor brokers said a section of leading ginners from the southern Punjab cotton belt had been holding bulk of the unsold stocks of about 0.2m bales for better price at the fag-end of the season.

But as there were no signs of widely speculated panic mill buying in the backdrop of a short crop, ginners finally decided to part with their unsold stocks mostly at the buyers’ option, they said.

The other destabilising factor in relation to prices was permission to import lint from India both by overland route and by sea and as a result, ginners have no option but to sell in part at the offered prices, they added.

Moreover, spinners and mills are more interested in the new crop from the lower Sindh cotton belt for quality reasons, as well as lower asking prices of around Rs2,500.

“Unlike the previous several years, central Punjab ginners, who resume ginning operations based on Sindh phutti well before their counterparts from Sindh were conspicuous by their absence from the Sindh phutti market,” says a leading broker adding “as a result, the Sindh market did not heat up in terms of price flare up.”

But reports reaching here said some of the ginners from the Sahiwal cotton belt in the central Punjab are planning to resume their operations by the end of the current month or early next month as picking operations of phutti are expected to be resumed shortly.

However, currently the market is in the tight grip of spinners and mills, which being the sole buyers, are setting the market trend, brokers said.

Ready off-take remained on the lower side as barring few lots of low-mix lint, no other deals were reported by the ginners.