KARACHI, Feb 11: The local cotton market remained steady on Saturday where some spinners and mill owners moved into the ring to replenish their stocks to meet their immediate future requirement of raw cotton.

There were some restricted deals in Punjab and upper Sindh varieties as couple of needy mills lifted stocks ahead of weekend closure.

Despite the fact that crop size is now being confirmed to be even less than official estimate of 12.5 million bales there seems to be no panic buying from spinners or mill owners.

However, cotton analyst Naseem Usman told Dawn that presently most of the mills were holding stocks and were in no hurry to go into long positions but in the near future there could be cotton crisis in the form of shortage.

With third and last picking of cotton at its fag end most of the cotton, according to reports reaching from fields, have already moved out and is either lying with middlemen or is in ginneries.

Consequently, floor brokers feel that if the government asks the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) to unload its stocks of around 370,000 bales to the local mills it would avert looming crisis and also help the corporation to get good price for its cotton.

The cotton sold to foreign buyers was reported to be still lying in TCP godowns and the mills had already lifted their purchased stocks from the corporation to meet their requirement.

The overall price structure of the market remained firm and steady with fairly high number of transactions recorded at ready section on Saturday. By late afternoon around 6,000 bales reported to have changed hands at Rs2,575 per maund.

On ready counter 5,000 bales from station Sadiqabad and Rahimyar Khan were reported to have materialized and another 1,000 bales from upper Sindh were also reported to have been transacted. Both deals were finalized at Rs2,575 per maund.

The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) spot rates remained firm at previous level.