KARACHI, June 6: The cotton market on Friday passed through the pre-budget session without showing any sign of normal trading as ginners held on to their positions unwilling to sell below Rs2,500 per maund.
Spinners also remained conspicuous by their absence amid rumours that the federal budget could be heavily tilted in favour of the textile industry, dealers said.
They said the government planned to push the annual export figure to $14 billion and the general official perception was that the textile sector could alone contribute $10 billion if some incentives are given to add more value to the textiles.
Moreover, the government also intends to keep the textile industry in a competitive form so that it could face the WTO regime challenges onward from the year 2005, they said.
Working on this perceptions, ginners were not inclined to lower their asking prices as they hope spinners will be back in the market during the post-budget sessions and lift all the unsold stock at their asking prices.
The market, therefore, could witness a lot of heating by the next week after ginners and spinners have digested the plus and negative points of the fiscal measures related to them, brokers said.
However, some of the spinners holding short positions remained in the market and lifted stray lots at around and slight above Rs2,500 per maund, they said.
Meanwhile, the latest export figures put the total up to May 23 to 0.218m bales, comprising 0.101m bales of the current crop and the balance of the old crop. Bulk of the physical shipments were made by the private sector barring 79,755 bales, which were sold by the Trading Corporation of Pakistan.
On the world cotton front, New York cotton futures recovered from the the recent lows and were quoted higher by 0.87 and 0.90 cents per lb at 50.51 and 53 cents per lb for both the ruling July and the distant October settlement, respectively.
Local official spot rates, however, did not show any change and were held at the previous levels amid light trading.
Ready offtake was modest totalling about 1,000 bales, the following being some of notable deals: 200 bales from Khanpur at Rs2,525 and 600 bales at Rs2,500.