KARACHI, Aug 3: New crop prices on Saturday maintained their upward drive as haunted by reports of pressure on the ready supplies some of the spinners were out to grab the floating stock.

An idea of price flare-up may well be had from the fact that new crop from the lower Sindh ginneries was sold at the seasonal peak level of Rs2,050 per maund without 15 per cent sales tax.

Floor brokers said more than one positive factors are fuelling the current bull-run as supplies are not enough to meet the rising mill demand owing to a considerable decline in arrivals of phutti from the growers.

“Growers may be holding on, in part, their freshly picked phutti hoping to get further higher prices, there appears to be no sinister move to create an artificial shortage of the commodity”, most brokers claim.

However, persistent rise in prices may not have any relevance to the supply position as the country has just harvested a third consecutive bumper crop of well over 10m bales. Spinners have also imported 1.2m bales from various sources earlier in the season to meet any possible shortage.

The total supplies together with the imported stuff come to about 10.8m bales, enough to meet the rising demand of the textile sector during the current season.

“The current price flare-up is attributed partly to fears of world crop shortage, notably in China and the US and partly higher prices in the major trading centres”, brokers said adding as “the local prices are still competitive as compared to imported stuff there is a bull-run caused by panic mill buying”.

Meanwhile, reports coming from the cotton belt indicate that with the exception of stray incidents of pest attack, the overall condition of the new crop is satisfactory and growth rate is steadily being maintained despite the absence of monsoon rain badly needed at this time of the season.

On the export front, private sector registered, with the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) export contracts for another 3,353 bales sold to Indonesia and Bangladesh. The total foreign sales up to Aug 1, rose to 0.280m bales.

Although new crop prices have soared to well over the Rs2,000 in physical trading, the official rate committee did not revise upward rate of the current crop, which were again quoted at Rs1,925 per maund.

New York cotton futures on the other hand showed a modest decline of 0.78 and 0.71 cents per lb at 46.48 and 48.18 cents for both the ruling October and the distant December settlements respectively.

Owing to higher asking prices, ready business was slow as till late in the evening only 200 bales of new crop from a Mirpurkhas ginnery changed hands at Rs2,025 and Rs2,050 per maund, without 15 per cent sales tax.