KARACHI, Dec 29: Cheerless conditions were witnessed on the cotton market on Friday as sellers and buyers kept to the sidelines most of the time and did not opt for ready buying.

Physical activity remained dull for the fourth session in a row despite the fact that some of the ginners lowered their asking prices for delivery prior to eid holidays and some of the spinners from the Punjab belt claimed to have lifted modest quantities as the transportation problems were not that acute there, notably for small distances from ginnery to a textile mills.

Some brokers, however, reported a modest business around Rs2,500 to Rs2,550 depending on the quality of lint and its staple length.

Bulk of the forward deals was said to be in upper Sindh fine types as leading spinners and mills need it to produce higher counts of yarn both for the export markets and local consumption, they said.

They said inferior lots both from the central Sindh and Punjab ginneries were available below Rs2,500 per maund but spinners were eyeing the fine types.

Some of the small mills are said to have covered positions in the low quality lint for delivery after eid at much lower rates, some of them are inclined to use it for blending purposes.

Market sources said some of the leading spinners and mills also increased the use of polyester fibre to produced blended cloth for the European consumers as it is available on slightly lower rates.

There was, therefore, no change in the official spot rates, which were firmly held unchanged at Rs2,500 per maund.

New York cotton futures on the other hand recovered overnight losses and were quoted higher by 0.58 and 0.49 cents at 56.96 and 57.48 cents per lb for both the ruling March and the distant May settlements respectively.

Ready off-take was light totaling 7,000 bales, both from the Sindh and the Punjab ginneries.