KARACHI, June 20: Trading on the cotton market on Monday remained slow as spinners and mills were still busy with the carryover business from the last Friday’s auction after the TCP has asked them to revise upward their bids to match their reference price. In last Friday’s auction, the TCP accepted bids for only 2,500 bales, out of the offered 60,000 bales, and the prospective buyers both local and foreign were asked to raise their bids. However, details about the further sales or how many spinners and mills raised their prices were not immediately available from the official sources.

But, sources said, the TCP is not worried by the poor off-take in the last auction and intends to dispose of its lint stocks at a competitive price and not at a loss as there is no compulsion of the situation.

“The deadline of Aug 15 for TCP to stop its local sales is still too far”, market sources said, adding that “the TCP could take a breather but will sell its stocks at a competitive price”.

There has been a talk of heavy losses on the part of TCP as it was selling its stocks at much lower rates than its procurement price but the current selling prices showed that it was eyeing the level of Rs2,500 per 40 kg in due course, they said.

However, next weekly auction will show how the buyers react to the recent increase in New York cotton futures, which are now firmly settled around 50 cents per lb.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the major cotton growing areas show that bulk of the sowing has been completed and in those areas where the crop has already been sown, growth is fairly satisfactory.

In the lower Sindh cotton belt, the crop is now in boiling stage and showed picking operations of phutti could resume by the middle of the next month provided the weather remain warm and dry.

Official spot rates were firmly held at the last close in the absence of feed back from the open market.

Ready off-take was light and consisted of inter-mill deals, while private sector exporters also sold modest lots to the mills.