KARACHI, Jan 13: Cotton market on Saturday maintained a bullish outlook as some of the leading spinners resumed their normal covering operations around the prevailing prices.

But some of lots from the southern Punjab cotton belt, which is currently centre of activity, are sold at Rs2,600 per maund as ginners were not inclined to lower their asking prices, floor brokers said.

Awaiting official nod about import of lint from India via overland route, some of the spinners made modest covering purchases against their forward sale of textiles to meet their physical shipment deadlines, they added.

Some of the spinners also purchased stray lots from the central Sindh ginners at much lower rates in an apparent effort to blend them with fine lots to make the end-product competitive on the world market, sources said.

Ginners entertain bullish future price idea partly because of lower crop and partly to pick in New York cotton futures as New Year world demand is slowly picking up, they said.

There are unconfirmed reports in the market that China, one of the largest lint importer, has resumed its forward buying for the next quarter, which in turn has triggered speculative buying from the others fearing further rise in prices, they said.

During the new trading, New York cotton futures are steadily rising each session and have made a positive impact on the world prices, including local cotton market, ginners said.

Owing to sympathetic increase in textiles, local producers are a bit happy on the rising prices, which are said to be economical for them despite current rise in lint, industry sources said.

Meanwhile, reports coming in for ancillary industry show a better intake of cotton yarn by them based on New Year export orders and in the process yarn prices have risen modestly from the recent lows, they added.

Official spot rates were again firmly held at the last level of Rs2,500 for average quality lint, but fine lots were traded well above them.

New York cotton futures on the other hand posted fresh rise of 0.66 cents and 0.78 cents per lb at 54.70 cents and 55.56 cents for both the ruling March and the forward May contracts, respectively.

Ready off-take by mills was light, totaling about 10,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals: Rahimyar Khan at Rs2,590 to Rs2,600 (3,000 bales); Sadiqabad and Bahawalpur at Rs2,575 (1,000 bales each); Khanpur at Rs2,580 (1,000 bales); Sahiwal at Rs2,450 (200 bales); Khipro at Rs2,460 (600 bales) and Shahdadpur at Rs2,475 (400 bales).