KARACHI, June 29: Steady conditions prevailed on the cotton market on Friday as spinners and mills kept chasing quality lint amid apprehensions about the size of the next crop.

The Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) report about sowing position of cotton crop is not encouraging, floor brokers said. The total area came under cotton sowing for 2012-13 crop was short by 8.88 per cent at 7,120,229 acres against 7,824,000 acres sown in 2011-12.

The actual target for 2012-13 is 7,806,105 acres.

As a result of this dismal report many spinners rushed to pick all lots offered by ginners and exporters. However the tight supply position of quality cotton disappointed many millers.

The PCCC report revealed lesser area came under cotton crop by 7.95 per cent over

last year (2011) in Punjab and in Sindh it is short by 12.62 per cent.

However, floor brokers said that if the BT cotton seed is widely used by growers in Punjab and Sindh it may help to offset the expected negative impact of short sowing.

On the world cotton market prices managed to partly recover last two days’ losses particularly on the New York Cotton Exchange where all future contracts ended with gains.

The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) however kept its spot rates steady at the overnight level.

On ready counter fairly large number of deals changed hands: 400 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs6,100, 100 bales, Pakpattan at Rs6,150, 100 bales, Burewala at Rs6,125, 300 bales, Haroonabad at Rs6,175, 219 bales, Arifwala at Rs5,850, 100 bales, Multan at Rs5,900 and 224 bales, Rahimyar Khan at Rs6,000.