KARACHI, Dec 21: Spinners were back on the cotton market on Saturday as sharp rebound staged by the world prices sent shock waves in the leading spinner cartel amid fears that the local lint could be expensive in the sessions to come.

But their chief worry was that imports of longer staple lint needed to produce blended fabrics and cotton yarn for the export markets may not remain competitive in the days to come, one broker said.

The local lint prices seldom show sympathetic rise in line with the international advice but if supply and demand factors govern the market, ginners are mostly at an advantage.

“Spinners and mills resort to near-panic buying if there is an abnormal rise in world prices, which in turn have a stabilizing impact on the market and in some cases push rates higher,” they added.

New York cotton futures on Friday soared 1.13 cents per lb to 51.45 cents per lb, reflecting pressure on near-term supplies in the backdrop of reports of lower crop in China and India.

The distant May contract on the other hand showed a modest rise of 0.51 cents per lb at 54.76 cents per lb, indicating what will be the market conditions at the fag-end of the current season.

Having a fair idea of the world supplies and demand, spinners and mills abandoned their tactical moves to outwit ginners and resumed their normal buying operations despite complains of liquidity problems, dealers said.

“The market though is currently range-bound, is expected to heat up early next year as developing world cotton situation could give it the needed push,” they added.

Mill demand has significantly expanded during the last two years as sick mills and idle capacity has been put into operations, they said, adding “it has to sustain its last year consumption level of about 1.3m bales and the total crop may be a bit lower.”

On the export front, private sector remained active and sold another 2,210 bales to Bangladesh and Philippines. The total foreign sales of both the old and the new crop since Sept 1, 2002 rose to 52,274 bales.

Official spot rates resisted fresh decline thanks to revival of mill demand were quoted unchanged at the last levels.

Ready offtake was active totalling about 30,000 bales, mostly fine lots both from Sindh and Punjab ginneries as under:

SINDH VARIETIES: 2,000 bales each from Dharki and Gothki and 1,000 bales from Oboro at Rs2,125.