KARACHI, April 8: Cotton prices on Friday remained stable around the previous levels as ginners held on to their positions despite the absence of strong mill buying. Mills and spinners seem to be awaiting the arrival of imported consignments and are not taking interest in the local stuff, although some of the ginners have lowered their asking prices for low-mic lots, brokers said. They are also eyeing sales by the TCP from its procured lint and policy guidelines for which have already approved at the highest levels.

But fine lots from the upper Sindh and southern Punjab ginneries are being quoted slightly above the average rates but spinners and mills are not inclined to pay more even for the fine lots, they said.

They said a modest increase in the New York cotton futures worried spinners as it may well be a prelude to further rise in local prices, indicating that export demand from the major users is again picking up.

Market sources said ginners are now a little worried over the unsold stocks lying with them, bulk of which is said to be low-mic, notably from the central Sindh and central Punjab ginneries.

According to ginners an unsold stock of around 0.250m bales, both fine and inferior lots, is lying with them and some leading ginners may like to hold on to their holdings in an effort to sell the same on much higher rates at the end of the seasons, they said.

Inferior lots were sold between Rs2,140 to Rs2,150 per maund but some of the fine ones fetched Rs2,250, although unconfirmed reports claim some of the deals in upper Sindh (K-68-Sawgin) were done around Rs2,300.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the official sources said the TCP is in the process of finalizing guidelines for the sale in part of its stocks to both local and foreign buyers.

After having shown fractional movements during the last couple of sessions, New York cotton futures managed to put on modest gains of 0.34 and 0.37 cents at 52.22 and 53.96 cents per lb for both the ruling May and the distant July settlements respectively.

Ready off-take was modest as under: 400 bales, Kotri at Rs2,140, 500 bales, Nawabshah at Rs2,175 and 1,200 bales, Multan at Rs2,250.