KARACHI, May 31: The cotton market on Tuesday lacked normal trading interest owing partly to incidents of violence in some parts of the city in reaction to an attack on a mosque and partly to the absence of leading spinners. However, reports coming from the southern Punjab cotton belt indicates that some of the Punjab’s spinners and mills are very active and are indulging in moping operations.

The lifting of odd lots, for instance 63 bales or 79 bales, by the spinners from the ginners reflects that most of the ginners have exhausted their stocks and a few lots here and there are in the trade but there is no big deal, brokers said. Reports of inter-mill dealings, both on cash and kind basis are also floating here and there but no leading brokerage house confirmed or denied them.

“At the fag-end of the season, some of the leading spinner groups having more lint than their annual consumption need either sell them to the needy one at the higher rates or oblige their counterparts,” market sources said. Meanwhile, the Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) has reportedly made arrangement to resume hedge trading in September and October settlements of the new crop after the official nod.

But the ginners are opposing the hedge trading as in their view speculators never allow a fair price to the grower or the ginner and manipulate the situation whenever they like to tilt in their favour, they said. A representative meeting of all the associations concerned has been called in Islamabad by the commerce minister on June 8 to allay the fears of weaker links, they added.

According to official figures released by the textile commissioner’s office, mill intake of lint had touched the highest mark of 6.047m bales, including 1.050m bales in January this year. It was perhaps in this background that official spot rates were quoted unchanged and in the ready section prices depended on the quality of lint. Ready offtake was light totalling about 700 bales, including 200 bales of an inferior quality from a Chichawatni ginnery at Rs2,000 per maund.