KARACHI, Nov 26: Ginners have decided to stop buying phutti (seed cotton) up to Dec 1 as a mark of protest against high rate of contamination and moisture in it.

The Pakistan Cotton Ginners’ Association (PCGA) convened an emergent general body meeting on Sunday in Multan to chalk out their future line of action.

Ginners alleged that growers were adding moisture and wood in the phutti, and it was causing loss to them, and they had even approached relevant government departments, but no action was taken.

The meeting also decided that up to Dec 1, 2007, the PCGA members would sell their cotton from their unsold stocks which stands at around two million bales and would not buy fresh phutti stocks.

However, the PCGA did not define a system through which it would be monitoring its members to make their boycott an effective one.

This means that the next fortnightly report on Dec 1 would exactly show how effective their move had been, cotton analysts said.

Nevertheless, some reports suggested that even on Monday some ginners lifted phutti from growers to keep their industry functional and one could not say how much phutti had been purchased ever since the boycott was made effective from Saturday last.

Cotton analysts believe that the game of boycotting phutti purchase had been planned jointly by spinning industry and ginners to bring down phutti prices and ultimately bring down cotton prices which are presently above Rs3,000 per 40 kg.

It is interesting that there is some dent in the price structure as phutti prices are now being quoted below Rs1,500 per 40kg in the range of Rs1,450 to Rs1,500 as against Rs1,600 about three days back.

Similarly, cotton prices in the domestic market also declined to Rs3,050 for Sindh variety and Rs3,100 for Punjab quality compared to Rs3,150 being quoted in the recent past.

Market analysts believed that if raw cotton prices in the domestic market cross Rs3,100 mark, it would mean that they have crossed import parity.

Market circles believe that around 1.6 to 1.8 million bales have, so far, been imported by spinners.

Of this quantity, they say 50 per cent had been imported from India and the remaining from US, Brazil and Egypt.