KARACHI, Feb 22: Trading on the cotton market on Thursday was relatively slow as both spinners and ginners held on to their positions over the future price outlook.

Mills are not inclined to go above their export parity level for the finished goods, while ginners entertain fresh rise in prices in the coming weeks based on supply position, dealers said.

Stray lots including a big-lot deal of 4,000 bales was reported as some of the leading mills were said to be after fine lots needed by them for higher yarn of counts and textiles, they added.

“Having a fair idea of their unsold stocks and size of the total crop, ginners appear to be in a commanding position and virtually set selling prices,” spinners said.

As a result most of the spinners who were not inclined to pay beyond their forward export deals preferred to sit on the sidelines as was evident from lower ready mill offtake.

“I think unsold stocks with the ginners around a million bales, bulk of which is said to be of fine quality, as leading among them have already disposed of bulk of the low-mic lots,” market sources said, adding “that is perhaps why they are not in a hurry”.

Moreover, ginners have a fair idea of the final crop figure which in their opinion could hardly touch revised total of 12m bales against the annual mill demand of about 15m bales.

The supply gap is expected to be bridged through imports from various surplus countries including India. Some of the leading spinners and mills had already made forward import deals with some of the importers, while others were awaiting an official nod for imports from India.

Official spot rates were firmly held at the overnight level of Rs2,525 for an average type of lint.

New York futures on the other hand showed a fresh fractional rise of 0.05 and 0.01 cent at 54.66 and 52.56 cents per lb for both the maturing March and the distant May contracts respectively.

Ready offtake was light totalling 7,000 bales as under: 1,200 bales, Khairpur at Rs2,470 and 4,000 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs2,600-2,625 per maund.