KARACHI, Feb 4: Trading resumed on a quietly steady note on the cotton market on Monday as spinners remained busy assessing the impact of latest arrival figures on the future price outlook.

According to the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA), the arrival figures of phutti into ginneries for the fortnight ended Jan 31, 2008, have crossed the 10m bales mark and may touch the total of 11m bales during the next couple of fortnights before the season is out.

This has allayed fears and speculations that the crop may not touch 10m bales mark owing to a big shortfall in the Punjab production target because of a latest pest attack, market sources said.

They said any further increase in the figure could well mean lower future import of lint at the current higher prices.

However, it is too early to say at this stage about the either way impact on local prices as it

will be known after mills and spinners resume normal trading activity, they said.

According to the figures, spinners have to a go long way to cover a good part of their annual consumption demand as they had so far purchased 8.815 million bales, about a half of their total needs.

The unsold stock of 1.744m bales, was, however, lower at 1.744m bales, as compared to 1.821m bales a fortnight earlier, which the mills will lift during the next couple of months.

Some cotton analysts said higher forward buying of lint from various countries seems to have neutralised the likely bullish impact at least for the near term on the local prices.

The falling daily turnover for the last couple of weeks indicates that spinners and mills are playing safe to keep prices within the current levels.

There was no change in the official spot rates which were quoted unchanged at Rs3,150 per maund.

Ready off-take was light, totaling about 4,000 bales as under: 2,500 bales, upper Sindh at Rs3,175 to 3,350 depending on quality and 600 bales, Sadiqabad at 3,350.