November 25, 2007	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 14, 1428

KARACHI, Nov 24: Physical activity on the cotton market on Saturday came to a grinding halt as ginners stopped buying phutti owing to crisis-like situation developing on the growers’ front.

Ginners claimed that growers were supplying contaminated phutti after watering and adding trash to it, which in turn significantly add to their production costs.

“Owing to larger import of lint from various countries including forward deals for about 0.8m bales from with India, local prices have declined well below our parity levels and we have to sell lint at discount,” leading ginners said.

As a result, most of the members of Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA), followed their apex body’s directive and did not make fresh commitments, local ginners said.

A representative meeting of the PCGA is expected to be held on Sunday in Multan which will take final decision on the issue and will seek official intervention to defuse the impending crisis, market sources said.

Spinners and mills are also worried over the PCGA decision as it will affect their export drive and in the process, lint may be further expensive, they added.

How the spinners will react to the new mid-season crisis on the cotton front is not clear but indications are that they will also meet to chalk out plan to ensure adequate supplies well in time, some others said.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged in the absence of sellers and were quoted at Rs3,075 per maund.

No deal was reported by any of the brokers in the ready section but a deal of 1,000 bales done late on Friday evening at Rs3,150.