KARACHI, July 18: Cotton market on Thursday shrugged off the last few sessions’ easiness as ginners raised their asking prices followed by reports of decline in arrivals of phutti into the ginneries from the growers.

But floor brokers attributed the turnaround to an actively participated foreign sales tender for 40,000 bales opened by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) on Thursday and bid prices are said to be on the higher side as compared to previous tender.

The highest bid for 5,000 bales of 1-1/16 variety was reported at 36.02 cents per lb and for the 1-1/32 variety at 35.27 cents per lb for the same quantity.

Other offers were said to be slightly below the top end ones but are in line with the current international price outlook.

“The TCP may or may not accept the bids offered for all the bales meant for foreign buyers, the satisfying feature was that foreign buyers have shown keen interest in the local lint, opening new avenue export outlets”, one broker said.

He predicted that local lint will be more expensive in the weeks to come as it is a bit cheaper than other cotton available on the foreign markets.

New York cotton futures, which generally sets the trend for the global markets to follow is currently under a speculative squeeze based on conflicting reports about the supply and demand factors.

An idea of speculative run may well be had from the fact that both the contracts staged a grand rebound, up 1.72 and 1.60 cents per lb at 45.10 and 46.54 cents for October and December settlements respectively after having fallen sharply during the last couple of sessions.

The local market followed the same line as prices rose from the overnight low of Rs1,600 to Rs1,875 per maund depending on the date of delivery.

Meanwhile, the private sector exporters and the TCP have registered foreign sales contracts for 840 bales and 1,300 bales respectively with the Export Promotion Bureau on July 16, 2002, raising the total foreign sales to 0.250m bales.

Official spot rates were quoted higher by Rs25 per maund, although some of the deals in the ready section were done well above this level.

Ready offtake was modest and was confined to new crop lots from the lower Sindh cotton belt, while a deal for 200 bales based on Sindh phutti was also finalized by a central Punjab ginner.

The following are details of forward deals spanning the delivery period from July 20 to early September, which gone through late in the Thursday evening: 300 bales, Sultanabad at Rs1,775, 400 bales, at Rs1,800, 100 bales, at Rs1,750 and 100 bales at Rs1,875, 100 bales, Pithero at Rs1,820 and 200 bales, Chichawatni at Rs1,775.