KARACHI: Listless conditions prevailed on the cotton market on Friday, conspicuous by the absence of the buyers. Falling world cotton prices coupled with poor off-take of yarn and grey cloth continued to depress proceedings.

Absence of buying interest pushed ginners under more pressure as they are still holding substantial quantity of unsold cotton. Similarly, growers with phutti (seed cotton) are also in a fix as falling prices could hardly meet their cost, brokers said.

Currently the entire cotton economy, including the textile sector, is faced with severe crisis and as a result circulation of billion of rupees somehow slowed down because each segment is lacking activity, said Naseem Usman, a leading cotton broker.

Millions of looms are shutting down in Faisalabad and elsewhere because of smuggled grey cloth from China and India which is rendering local production line uncompetitive.

The New York cotton for third consecutive session closed easy as all the future contracts lost more ground. The other world leading cotton markets also closed easy.

The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) spot rates were firm at overnight level.

Trading on ready counter remained negligible and barring a single deal of 809 bales from Hala, done at Rs5,100.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2018