KARACHI: Cotton prices moved higher on Tuesday amid increased demand from some leading textile spinners as they replenished their stocks from the local market, fearing costly imports.

The low cotton production figures released by the ginners association earlier also had some negative impact on the market.

The country has produced less cotton up to Dec 1, at 9.366 million bales as against 10.132m bales produced in the corresponding period of last season. This means that cotton crop is short by 0.765m or 7.55 per cent over the last year.

According to private estimates, the textile industry needs around 15m bales but the country is expected to produce no more than 10.5m bales, which means that around 4-4.5m bales would have to be imported.

However, slow offtake of cotton yarn in the domestic and world market continues to negatively impact cotton trading and until it does not improve, the spinning industry would not build their stocks, the brokers said.

Trading on ready counter witnessed upward trend in cotton prices as quality cotton was traded at higher prices. The Karachi Cotton Association spot rates were also revised upward by Rs100 to Rs8,800 per maund.

The following deals were reported to have changed hands on ready counter: 800 bales from Tando Adam were done at Rs8,250 to Rs8,300; 2,000 bales, Rohri, at Rs8,800 to Rs8,825; 1,600 bales, Saleh Pat, at Rs8,700; 2,000 bales, Khairpur Mir­us, at Rs8,550 to Rs8,750; 3,000 bales, Sadiqabad, at Rs9,000 to Rs9,050; 1,000 bales, Rahimyar Khan, at Rs9,000; 1,600 bales, Fort Abbas, at Rs8,350 to Rs8,550; 1,400 bales, Haro­on­abad, at Rs7,900 to Rs8,400 and 600 bales from Bahawalpur were done at Rs8,300.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2018