KARACHI: Revival of buying interest at lower level helped cotton market on Thursday to recover some part of the recent losses.

However, activity could not expand as spinners remained cautious and focused on short-term needs.

Trading activity resumed on a firm note as some needy spinners moved in to replenish their stocks. But the overall sentiment remained uncertain as spinners are currently faced with huge unsold cotton yarn stocks.

According to market reports, many textile spinning mills have either shut-down their production lines owing to huge cotton yarn stocks, or are resorting to lesser shifts per day to restrict production.

A leading broker said that currently all the stakeholders in cotton economy are faced with acute liquidity crunch because payments are being held back at each stage, causing slackened demand for cotton yarn.

The only encouraging development was that as year-end bank closing is over, some liquidity is getting improved in businesses, encouraging hope for the days to come.

The world’s leading cotton markets also remained easy including New York and Indian cotton.

The Karachi Cotton Association spot rates were firm at overnight level at Rs8,800 per maund.

The following deals were reported to have changed hands on the ready counter: 400 bales from Tando Adam were done at Rs7,200; 900 bales, Shahdadpur, at Rs8,350; 600 bales, Khairpur Mirus, at Rs8,200-8,400; 1,000 bales, Rohri, at Rs8,600; 400 bales, Saleh Pat, at Rs8,600; 600 bales, Haroonabad, at Rs8,700; 1,000 bales, Fort Abbas, at Rs8,000; 600 bales, Bahawal Nagar, at Rs8,300-9,000 and 400 bales from Ghotki were done at Rs8,650-8,850.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2019