KARACHI, Aug 30: Cotton prices on Wednesday rose further higher on near-panic buying by both the spinners and the mills followed by speculative reports about damage to standing crop.

“The crop has been damaged in some of the areas of the entire belt owing to heavy monsoon rain but it is too early to speculate about the volume of damage,” says a leading cotton analyst.

Much of the activity remained confined to central Punjab variety and some deals were finalised at Rs2,700 per maund, the season’s highest level so far.

Whether the current panic among the textile sector about the size of the crop is genuine or speculative forces are at work to intensify such perception, floor brokers said.

But the panic mill buying reflects, spinners through their own monitoring networks may have some latest information about the damage and resorted to panic buying, they added.

However, one thing is clear that in typical Pakistani conditions, the possibility of reaction in prices appears to be a bit remote but efforts could be initiated to contain them around the current level after taking some corrective steps, they said.

Some leading spinners fear that export target based on the performance of the textile sector may not be achieved if lint prices maintain their upward drive.

Official spot rates were held unchanged at the overnight level of Rs2,550 but most of the deals in the ready section were done well above them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand showed modest increase of 0.17 and 0.19 cents per lb at 53.35 and 55.37 for both the ruling October and the distant December contracts.

Ready off-take was on the higher side totalling about 6,000 bales as under.

SINDH TYPE: 200 bales, each Tando Adam and Mirpurkhas at Rs2,500 and 400 bales, Tando Muhammad Khan at Rs2,500 to Rs2,525.