KARACHI: Lacklustre conditions prevailed on the cotton market on Wednesday as buyers withdrew to the sidelines amid higher asking prices for quality lots.

According to market estimates, ginners’ unsold stocks shrank to around 0.4 million bales.

Meanwhile, reports suggest there is some improvement in the flow of irrigation water with scattered rains in Sindh and Punjab.

The government has fixed next season’s cotton crop production target at 14.37 million bales, which is on the higher side unlikely to be achieved. Cotton analyst Naseem Usman said that after fixing such high targets the successive governments never look back and monitor the crop.

He recalled that the highest cotton production of around 15m bales was achieved in 2013-14, all successive seasons witnessed crop failures with output around 10m to 11m bales.

The world leading markets were firm with New York cotton closing higher for all futures contracts. Indian cotton was also steady on reported demand from China.

The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) left its spot rates steady at overnight level. Late in the evening on the ready market only one deal of 400 bales from Khanewal was finalised at Rs7,800.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2018