KARACHI: Buyers continued to dominate the cotton market for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday. Falling stocks of quality cotton with ginners and sustained demand from mills kept cotton prices on the higher side.

Much of the activity remained around quality cotton though many textile spinners were unable to get hold of deals of their choice.

The recent heavy rains and hailstorm in Punjab severely damaged standing wheat crop and has led to delay in cotton sowing. The arrival of new cotton crop from the province would be late and lead to lint shortage in coming months.

The world leading cotton markets gave easy trend including New York, Chinese and Indian cotton markets. China has offered one million tonnes of cotton from old stocks for sale in the world market. Earlier, the Chinese also entered the world market to procure around 800,000 tonnes of cotton from new stocks.

The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) spot rates were firm at overnight level at Rs8,850 per maund.

The following deals were reported to have changed hands on ready counter: 200 bales, Tando Adam, at Rs6,200; 250 bales, Sanghar, at Rs6,300; 800 bales, Dah­arki, at Rs9,000; 2,000 bales, Ghotki, at Rs9,000; 2,000 bales, Rahim Yar Khan, at Rs8,900-9,000.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2019