KARACHI, May 25: Cotton prices on Friday showed a modest rise of Rs25 per maund for fine type after spinners sought fresh supplies from the ginners. Some leading ginners said a number of spinners and mills made several enquiries for a substantial quantity of fine lots but offered prices were far below the asking prices.

“In the backdrop of current price flare-up on the world markets, local ginners have also raised their asking prices for the fine stuff and are not inclined to entertain lower offers,” floor brokers said.

Some of the leading ginners who still hold bulk of the unsold stock of about 0.2m bales have already lowered their asking prices from the recent highs of Rs2,800 per maund to Rs2,600 to clear the backlog but refused to go below this level, they said.

Indications are that local ginners are closely following the price trend on the New York cotton exchange and are least worried whether or not spinners obliged them, some others said.

Meanwhile, reports reaching here from the lower Sindh belt indicate that the growth of the new crop is fairly steady owing to normal supplies of irrigation water.

While in the other major of cotton belt sowing of new crop is well in progress and is expected to be completed by June 15 for a healthy and a good crop, market sources said.

There was no change in the official spot rates, which were held unchanged at Rs2,650 per maund for an average quality lint.

New York cotton futures on the other hand recovered a good part of the overnight losses and were quoted higher by 0.95 and 0.59 cents per lb at 50.09 and 53.24 cents for both the ruling July and the new crop October contracts respectively.

Ready offtake was light as only 1,000 bales from a Jalalpur ginnery changed hands at Rs2,600 per maund.