KARACHI, May 31: Cotton market on Wednesday maintained a firm trend but ready off-take remained slow as spinners were not inclined to buy at higher asking prices being demanded by ginners.

Stray lots from the southern Punjab ginneries, however, did change hands below Rs2,500 per maund as most of the spinners were not willing buyers beyond this level owing to their export parity levels, floor brokers said.

However, brokers reported several buying offers for central Sindh and upper Sindh varieties and were expecting some deals for delivery next week around the buyers’ option.

But on the other hand the recent rebound staged by the New York cotton futures above the 50-cent per lb benchmark has raised hopes among the local ginners that the lint could be more expensive during the coming weeks.

“Unsold stocks in our godowns mostly of fine quality are manageable and don’t affect our financial position,” says a leading ginner “but we will certainly await the international developments before disposing them of”.

Market sources said some of the spinners and mills were in short supply because of financial constraints and finding it pretty difficult to follow the rising prices.

Low daily volumes reflect this phenomenon as despite pressure on local supplies, ready off-take did not match the buying offers owing to higher prices, they added.

Meanwhile, private sector exporters, who purchased 0.744m bales from the current crop, had physically shipped about 0.413 million bales up to March 31, 2006 and were expected to meet their shipment deadlines during the next couple of weeks.

Official spot rates were firmly held at the last level and some of the deals were finalised above them.

New York cotton futures rose by 0.71 and 0.90 cents at 51.65 and 55.30 cents per lb for both the ruling July and the forward October contracts respectively.

Ready off-take was light totalling 2,500 bales mostly from the southern Punjab ginneries including 660 bales from a Khanpur ginnery at Rs2,475 per maund.