KARACHI, May 13: The cotton market on Saturday consolidated overnight gains, as leading ginners held on to their unsold positions and were not inclined to sell below Rs2,500 per maund.

While some of the lots from the southern Punjab cotton belt were again sold at around Rs2,500 per maund, some of the ginners from upper Sindh, however, lowered their asking prices, although most of them still hold fine lots, brokers said.

Physical activity, however, remained slow partly because of higher prices and partly to weekend considerations ahead of the TCP tender against which bids will be opened on Tuesday, they added.

Analysts said heating of the world cotton markets had raised hopes among the local ginners of an identical rise and leading among them are holding on to their unsold positions rather than selling at the lower levels.

“Negative reports about the sowing of the new crop in the backdrop of feared draught conditions in the post-sowing period have raised many questions about the future supply and demand,” they said, adding: “Due to an expected pressure on supplies in the near future, the ginners prefer to hold on to their positions before the arrival of the new crop from the lower Sindh cotton belt.”

In a related development, New York cotton futures are also rising on speculative buying on the perception that Pakistani spinners may enter the world market to make up the possible supply gap, they added.

Spinners and mills are worried over the chain negative impact on the cotton economy as a whole, if irrigation problem persisted even after the sowing of the new crop.

Meanwhile, private sector exporters registered export contracts for another 20,000 bales during the last couple of week, totalling 0.295m bales up to May 7, 2006 and physically shipped 41,276 bales in March.

New York cotton futures posted a fresh gain of 0.74 and 0.79 cents at 52.05 and 54.99 cents per lb for both the ruling July and new crop October settlements, respectively.

Official spot rates were again firmly held around the overnight level, although some of the deals were done well above them.

Ready offtake was light totalling about 5,000 bales as under: 3,500 bales, Gothki, Dharki and Mirpur Mathelo at Rs2,450 to Rs2,460; and 500 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs2,500.