KARACH: Cotton prices rose on Monday though trading was slow as buyers and sellers remained to the sidelines owing to short supply of quality lint.

According to market estimates, ginners currently hold 500,000 bales of cotton and they are also careful in disposing of these stocks in order to get best prices.

Spinners are facing difficulty in exporting cotton yarn on the world market owing to uncompetitive pri­­ces, however, there was fairly good demand for yarn on the local market, brokers said.

Moreover, drop in prices of polyester cotton (PC) influenced by falling global petroleum prices could also encourage the value-added textile sector to use more PC yarn than cotton yarn, they added.

PC yarn prices have dropped to Rs127 a kilogram from Rs129 last week.

The Karachi Cotton Association raised its spot rates by Rs50, to Rs6,800 per maund (around 37kg). On the ready counter, only one deal of 200 bales was officially reported at Rs7,100 per maund until the filing of this story.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2017