KARACHI, Nov 5: The cotton market on Wednesday maintained firm trend as spinners and mills continued to build up long positions at the prevailing prices amid loud whispering that the final crop size may be much lower than their annual consumption needs.

However, the textile sector is apparently not carried away by the higher arrivals of phutti into the ginneries, showing an increase of a million bales each fortnight since the new season commenced as they know the crop will below the revised target of 12m bales plus, market sources said.

“What worry them is problem on the foreign exchange front,” said a cotton analyst Naseem Usman. “The industry is denied of cheaper imports because of pressure on foreign exchange”.

The consignments against previous import deals finalised at much higher rates between 56 and 72 cents per lb a couple of months back are steadily arriving in from August.

During September alone about 0.2m bales had reached in the godowns of the textile industry but since then there is a quiet on the import front owing to price disputes as world prices have declined to 46 cents per lb from the seasonal peak of 75 cents, industry sources said.

Meanwhile, reports reaching here from the cotton belt indicate that picking operations of phutti are in full swing and growers selling their stocks at the prevailing prices.

Official spot rates were firmly held at the overnight level of Rs3,200 per maund, but in the ready section fine lots were traded well above this level.

New York cotton futures on the other hand staged smart recovery on revival of world demand and were quoted higher by 1.64 and 1.72 cents per lb at 46.32 and 50.87 cents for both the ruling December and the distant March settlements respectively.

Mill ready off-take was on the higher side amounting to 30,000 bales, the following being some of the notable deals:

SINDH TYPE: 1,200 bales each Shahdadpur, Mirpurkhas and Sultanabad at Rs3,100, 1,000 bales each Sanghar and Khairpur and 2,500 bales, upper Sindh, 400 and 600 bales, Shahpur Chakar and Nawabshah also at Rs3,100.

PUNJAB VARIETY: 1,200 bales, Janpur at Rs3,250, 2,000 bales, Ahmedpur East at Rs3,200 to Rs3,250, 1,600 bales, Kabirwala at Rs3,225 to Rs3,250, 1,600 bales, Burewala, 1,000 bales, Chichawatni, at Rs3,200, 2,000 bales, Alipur at Rs3,200 to Rs3,250 and retail lots totalling about 8,000 bales were done at Rs3,150 to Rs3,250.