KARACHI, July 17: Lint prices on Saturday drifted further lower as some of the ginners indulged in near-panic selling as spinners again withdrew to the sidelines anticipating fresh decline during the next week.

Spinners claim massive battering of the New York cotton futures during the last couple of weeks followed by reports of a world production glut has a negative impact on the textile exports.

"Yarn prices on the world markets have dropped by Rs80 to Rs90 per bundle, which means about Rs7 to Rs8 per lb followed sharp decline in the New York cotton futures", says a spinner "It means heavy losses to sell yarn at the current levels after having purchased lint at much higher rates".

After importing over 2m bales of lint from various foreign sources, spinners had also purchased over 9m bales from the local ginners to meet increasing demand of the industry but the mid-season turmoil on the world cotton markets and in turn on textiles has sent shock waves among the spinners the worldover.

"Why should we add fresh lint stocks to our inventory if the end-product fails to find competitive selling prices", says a leading spinner commenting on their protracted absence from the cotton market.

Spinners and mills are virtually trapped in their self-created safety perceptions and massively opted for the foreign lint after a word about a short crop reached them, analysts said adding "steep fall in New York cotton futures further aggravated the market situation for them".

That speaks of the reason behind the spinners's absence from the market and ginners failure to sell a meagre unsold lint stock of about 0.375m bales.

Although new crop from the central Punjab cotton belt has already made modest debut but prices being quoted by the ginners are in line with the world rates and some of the spinners are buyers at these rates.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the lower Sindh cotton belt indicate that picking operations of phutti are in full swing but local ginners have not resumed ginning operations.

The prices of phutti are being quoted around Rs960 to Rs975 per 40 kg in Sindh and Rs1,000 to Rs1,025 in the central Punjab.

Official spot rates were marked further down by Rs25, the total loss during the week of the order of Rs250 per 40 kg.

New York cotton futures on Friday showed a fractional rise of 0.2 cents at 47.30 cents per lb, while forward December was marked down by 0.47 cents at 47.38 cents.

Ready offtake was light totalling 2,000 bales as under: 800 bales, Shadadpur at Rs2,400, 761 and 300 bales, Gothki and Dharki also at this rate.