KARACHI, Aug 8: Cotton market on Tuesday passed through another dull trading session as spinners and mills remained conspicuous by their absence owing partly to higher asking prices by the ginners for the new crop.

Reports of damage to the standing crop in some of the Sindh cotton growing areas worried spinners as it could push prices further higher during the coming weeks, market sources said.

An idea of reports of damage to the cotton crop may well be had from the fact that speculative forces made forward buying on the New York Cotton Exchange in the hope of further upward push to the prevailing prices, they said.

Although the current monsoon rain spell seems to have taken a breather but the picking operation of phutti may take some more days to be resumed if there is no fresh rain, ginners said.

Phutti stocks arrived in the ginneries prior to last week’s heavy rainfall, is still wet and may take some more days to be ready for processing as wet ginning damages the quality of lint and its fibre strength, they said.

In the absence of availability of new crop at competitive prices, some of the spinners needing immediate supplies have opted for the current crop both from the central Sindh and southern Punjab ginneries.

Ready off-take was, therefore, remained light as only those spinners who needed ready delivery entered the market. Some of the deals were reported in the old crop and new crop from the central Punjab cotton belt where ginning operations are continuing normally, brokers said.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged at Rs2,500 per maund in the absence of active physical business.

New York cotton futures on the other hand were quoted higher by 0.32 and 0.60 cents per lb at 54.80 and 56.88 cents for both the ruling October and the forward December settlements respectively.