KARACHI, Sept 13: Active trading was witnessed on the cotton market on Thursday as spinners and mills indulged in near-panic buying despite reports of higher crop estimates.After several relatively lean sessions, big lot business was witnessed as some of the leading spinners and mills lifted the unsold floating stock at the current rates, floor brokers said.

For the last couple of sessions prices were stable below Rs2,900 per maund and strong mill buying reflected that they were in line with their export parity levels.

The interesting feature was that the higher crop estimates projected by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) did not have negative fallout on the prevailing prices but instead reinforced the spinner perceptions that another price flare-up may not be imminent, some others said.

However, there was no official word on the mealybug attack reported in some cotton areas of the Punjab but local ginners said it was controlled and there was no major damage to the standing crop, they said.

Stable prices well below the Rs2,900 per maund also

reflected that the mill intake was orderly and there was no sign of panic among the spinners and mills as far as production figures were concerned, they added.

Meanwhile, reports reaching here from the southern Punjab and upper Sindh cotton belts, known for fine quality lint, show that picking operations of phutti are well in progress and lint from there is expected to rejoin the main stream in couple of weeks.

Lint from these areas is expected to fetch higher prices as compared to the central Punjab and Sindh owing to quality premiums, ginners said.

There was no change in the official spot rates at Rs2,775 per maund but in the ready section most of the deals were done well above this rate.

Mill ready off-take was on the higher side totalling about 20,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals.

SINDH VARIETY: 2,000 bales and 1,600 bales, Shahdadpur and Tando Adam at Rs2,850 to Rs2,860, 1,000 bales, each Mirpurkhas and Shahpur Chakkar and 1,400 bales, Sanghar at Rs2,525 to Rs2,850.