KARACHI, April 7: Cotton prices on Wednesday modestly eased from the previous levels as some of the ginners tried to unload their positions at the current levels amid predictions of further decline in prices.

Governor State Bank Dr Ishrat Husain who visited the Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) on Wednesday to have an overview of the current cotton situation and the allied problems being faced by the cotton trade has a detailed discussions with the high-ups including hedge trading.

But showed his inability when requested to persuade spinners and mills to bail the ginners out from the larger unsold stock of 1.2m bales lying with them. He said ginners should have sold their stocks after prices had hit the all-time high mark of Rs3,600 per maund.

Most of the deals were finalized in line with the quality premiums but ginners failed to maintain their previous price level of Rs3,000 per maund and lowered their asking prices for the stuff to Rs2,900.

Some of the deals both in upper Sindh and southern Punjab lint were done at Rs2,900 as ginners have been outwitted by the spinners after having significantly curtailed their daily intake, dealers said.

The other destabilizing factor was falling world prices and fears among the local ginners of an identical decline in prevailing prices and weaker among them hastened to get out of the market.

New York cotton futures fell further on Tuesday on renewed selling and were quoted lower by 0.46 and 0.35 cents per lb at 61.72 and 63.76 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the forward July contracts respectively.

Meanwhile, despite being in short supply spinners and mills are making cautious buying apparently in an effort to keep prices within the current levels, brokers said.

Moreover, hopes of further decline in world prices, which could make import more competitive also hindering larger buying by the mills, they said. Official spot rates were, however, did not show any change despite fall in the ready prices and were firmly held at the previous levels.

Ready business was modest totalling about 10,000 bales as under:

SINDH TYPE: 1,000 bales, Nawabshah at Rs2,700, 1,100 bales, Upper Sindh fine quality at Rs2,900.