KARACHI, June 6: The cotton market on Wednesday passed through another dull session as spinners and mills did not enter into fresh physical business awaiting announcement of the widely-rumoured textile package in the new budget.

There was however no sign of pre-budget buying from any section of the spinners and mills who apparently intend to base their future buying operations after the expected textile package, floor brokers said.

However, no one could deny the fact that spinners are terribly short of their annual consumption needs of lint and are looking for desired stuff at competitive rates, they said.

The world lint is becoming expensive each day after the entry of the local mills on the world markets to line up supplies both for nearby and forward deliveries, they said.The impact of their big shopping list is evident from the current rise in the New York cotton futures, which soared by 1.76 and 1.70 cents per lb at 51.75 and 55.40 cents for both the ruling July and the new crop October settlements respectively.

“I think spinners are expected to opt for the local stuff during the post-budget sessions as by that time details of the expected textile package will be out,” said a leading broker, adding “the local stuff is still a bit cheaper as compared to foreign one”.

According to market sources an unsold stuff of about 0.150 million bales is in the godowns of the leading ginners and indications are that local prices will also rise in sympathy with the foreign ones during the post-budget sessions.

Meanwhile, reports reaching here from the lower Sindh and Central Punjab cotton belts indicate that picking operations of phutti in these areas is well in progress and some of the mills are expected to resume ginning operations by the middle of the current week.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged at Rs2,600 per maund but some of the deals changed hands below this rate.

Although some of the brokers claimed that some lots did change hands but there was no official confirmation of any deal.