KARACHI: Cotton prices reeled back on falling demand from leading spinners on Friday. Liquidity crunch, acute shortage of quality lint and reports of more rains in cotton growing areas also affected market sentiments negatively.

Climate change is having a devastating impact on cotton crop and there is an urgent need to work out future plans before the arrival of new cotton season 2019-20, alarmed brokers said on Friday.

The situation is so grim that due to poor quality of cotton and short crop many ginners have stopped their operations as they cannot process local cotton without mixing it with imported variety, they added.

Cotton analyst Naseem Usman said the government has to work on war footing for developing high yield and pest resistant cotton seeds.

He also suggested that in order to increase cotton production, incentives, such as support price, should be given to growers and only then targets can be met.

The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) spot rates were lowered Rs100 to Rs9,000 per maund and this took the total fall in a week to Rs300 per maund.

The following deals were reported to have changed hands on ready counter: 1,000 bales, station Rahim Yar Khan, at Rs9,150; 1,200 bales, Sadiqabad, at Rs9,100; 1,000 bales, Rajanpur, at Rs8,950; 1,000 bales, Yazman Mandi, at Rs8,900; and 800 bales, Fazilpur, at Rs8,950.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2019