KARACHI: Cotton trading remained brisk on Saturday amid fears of shortage of quality cotton after an indirect ban on Indian imports which meet up to 2.5 million bales of the local industry annually.
Trading resumed on a firm note with buyers focusing their activity around quality cotton whose availability was becoming difficult with each passing day. There are strong indications that the quality cotton would only be available up to the first picking or by end of this month, brokers said.
The cotton price also remained higher, though no fresh gains were noted as spinners are cautious not to allow cotton rates to rise beyond certain level, brokers added.
However, the unofficial ban imposed on cotton imports from India caused panic among spinners who rushed to build up their stocks to meet their maximum raw material needs from domestic source, they added.
There are reports that the plant protection department has stopped issuing new no-objection certificates to cotton imports from India though market sources said that around 200,000 bales have been booked so far by some spinners.
Analyst Naseem Usman said cotton imports from other countries — the United States, Brazil and some African countries — was costlier and freight charges are also higher.
He added that some spinners have already booked around 1.5 million bales from these countries, but due to falling cotton and yarn prices in India the spinners are keen to get their needs fulfilled from there.
Mr Usman estimated that current high cotton prices would only benefit around 20pc of growers because 80pc of them have already sold their crop (phutti) to ginners.
The KCA left its spot rates unchanged. Major deals on the ready counter were: 2,000 bales from Khairpur (Rs6,150 to Rs6,200), 2,400 bales Rohri (Rs6,150 to Rs6,250), 1,000 bales Saleh Pat (Rs6,200 to Rs6,250), 1,400 bales Mianwali (Rs6,400), 1,400 bales Chishtian (Rs6,250 to Rs6,275), 1,800 bales Faqirwali (Rs6,300 to Rs6,310), 3,200 bales Haroonabad (Rs6,300 to Rs6,310), 1,400 bales Fort Abbas (Rs6,325), 1,200 bales Dera Ghazi Khan (Rs6,350), 1,400 bales Sadiqabad (Rs6,350), 1,200 bales Ahmedpur (Rs6,350 to Rs6,400), 2,000 bales Rahimyar Khan (Rs6,350 to Rs6,400) and 2,000 bales Khanpur (Rs6,400).
Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2016
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