KARACHI, July 21: Trading activity on the cotton market on Saturday picked up as spinners resumed their normal covering operations after apparently having assessed the impact of the new trade policy on the textile sector.

Another sharp decline of four cents in New York cotton futures has raised hopes that the current slide will continue on strong speculative selling pushing them below the 60 cent level, making imports feasible, spinners said.

“A selling rate of 55 cents per lb or slightly above it could make imports a bit competitive,” they said.

Barring those consignments that have arrived here under the previously signed deals at 50-52 cents per lb, there is a virtual halt on imports after foreign exporters are quoting f.o.b prices around 68 to 70 cents per lb, they added.

Market sources said that spinners’ willingness to cover forward positions at the ginners’ asking prices of well over Rs3,000 per maund suggested that the current rates were in line with their export parity levels.

The new trade policy provides a number of incentives including soft credit lines and duty concessions to boost textile exports to achieve the export target of $19.5 billion for the current fiscal, they added.

Moreover, some of the leading spinners who have their own crop monitoring system also fear that the new crop may be well below the target followed by reports of damage to Sindh crop owing to pest attack and floods, floor brokers said.

As a result, the lower Sindh type was traded higher by Rs50 at Rs3,000 to Rs3,050 per maund as local mills resumed buying after a technical breather, they said.

Official spot rates were again firmly held at the last levels but in the ready section most of the deals were done Rs1000 to Rs1500 per maund above them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand fell further by 1.55 and 1.77 cents at 61.10 and 62.72 cents per lb for both the ruling October and the forward December settlements respectively.Ready offtake was on the higher side totalling about 3,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals.

SINDH TYPE: 200 bales of Sultanabad and , 400 bales of Mirprukhas at Rs3,000, 400 and 200 bales Shahdadpur and Tando Adam at Rs3,050 and 200 bales, Sultanabad at Rs3,040.