KARACHI, Sept 10: Physical activity on the cotton market on Monday was maintained on the higher side as spinners and mills lifted all the lots offered by the ginners at the prevailing rates.

Another 20,000 bales changed hands mostly from the Sindh ginneries, ready off-take in the Punjab lint was relatively slow because of quality differentials, floor brokers said.

But a leading cotton analyst said the slow mill off-take was because of financial constraints owing to some problems on the export front.

They said this was also evident from the uniform rate of Rs2,850 per maund at which most of the deals for fine lots were done from the entire cotton belt.

There were no reports from Balochistan about cotton production this year as the province last year had produced about 55,000 bales, brokers said, adding “the entire crop may have been washed away by the flood which also damaged crop in some parts of the Sindh cotton belt”.

Market sources said for the last couple of sessions, prices seem to have been stabilised around Rs2,850 per maund despite interruption in phutti arrivals in some parts of the Punjab cotton belt late last week.

The important factor behind the stable price outlook appears to be steady inflow of phutti into the ginneries as no one among the leading growers is in a mood to hold on long unsold positions, they said.

“An active ready mill off-take reflects that the current rates are in line with their export parity levels and no one among them is inclined to take risk at this stage owing to volatility of the cotton market,” they added.

Official spot rates were again held unchanged at the weekend level of Rs2,775 per maund.

The following some to the notable deals which did changes hands on Monday.

SINDH VARIETY: 1,600 bales, Mirpurkhas at Rs2,750 to Rs2,800, 1,200 bales, Sanghar at Rs2,800 to Rs2,850, 400 bales, Jhole, 2,200 bales, Shahdadpur, 2,000 bales, Tando Adam and 1,000 bales, Hyderabad at Rs2,825 to Rs2,850.

PUNJAB TYPE: 400 bales, each from Burewala, Haroonabad, Arifwala at Rs2,850, 200 bales each from Pakpattan, Ghaziabad, Pir Mahal, Hasilpur and 600 bales, Chichawatni at Rs2,850 and 600 bales, Jahania at Rs2,850 to Rs2,900.