KARACHI, May 22: Cotton market on Thursday passed through a relatively dull session as ginners raised their asking prices after the mills and spinners resumed their local buying.

Floor brokers said although mill purchases during the last two sessions were light, the general thinking was that the current covering operations will be continued by them until the unsold stocks lying with the ginners are fully exhausted.

But ginners were not inclined to toe this line of thinking and were guided by the supply and demand factors and were not in an obliging mood and raised their asking prices, they said.

Spinners and mills are now operating in line with their export parity levels and withdraw to the sidelines if ruling prices are higher than their parity for cotton yarn and cloth.

That was perhaps why no deal was reported in the ready section by any of the leading brokers as price ideas of buyers and sellers failed to find a meeting ground, market sources said.

However, spinners are expected to be back in the market after world yarn prices show a modest improvement and demand from the Far Eastern importers gets normal, they said.

They said the falling mill demand just in the backdrop of a short crop and higher world prices reflects that all was not well with the major foreign exchange earner and its impact will be visible on the total exports by the last quarter of the current fiscal.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the lower Sindh cotton belt indicate that the current duststorms have damaged standing crops in some of the coastal areas. The resowing in these areas is not possible as the crop is close to maturing stage and picking operations of the new crop are expected to resume by the end of the next month.

Market sources claim the sowing of new crop in the uppers Sindh and the southern Punjab cotton belts, the two major producers of medium staple lint is expected to be completed during the next couple of weeks but before June 15, the official deadlines set for a healthy crop.

Ready offtake remained at a low ebb as till late in the evening no broker reported any deal. But reports coming from the Punjab claim ginners sold stray lots to the local spinners around Rs2,525 to 2,550.00 per maund.

Official spot rates, however, remained basically unchanged in the absence of ready business.