KARACHI, Feb 21: A pre-Eid holiday mood prevailed on the cotton market on Thursday as buyers and sellers were not inclined to make fresh commitments owing to delivery problems.

But some brokers claimed stray lots did change hands as spinners holding short stock positions lifted modest quantities of lint on an emergency basis to keep the wheels moving during the Eid holidays.

The cotton market will be closed for Eid holidays from Friday and will resume normal trading from next Monday, market sources said.

But they don’t think the pent-up mill demand will figure prominently on the first post-Eid holiday session as much of the time will be spend in exchanging Eid greetings.

Already, spinners have curtailed their daily intake for technical reasons despite ginners’ persistent requests to the government to come to their rescue.

“Ginners have threatened to stop buying phutti from the growers if the government failed to make arrangements for the purchase of 1.8 million bales ready in commercial packing by Feb 28”, reports reaching here from Multan about the details of an extraordinary meeting of ginners held there on Wednesday indicate.

Ginners claim the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) is not buying lots, ready in commercial packing according to the international standards and is opting for the newly packed ones perhaps for no apparent valid reasons.

“Over 1.8 million unsold bales means about Rs20 billion of the ginners are tied to them, straining their financial liquidity”, ginners said adding “they are not in a position to clear growers dues”.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) was said to be in turmoil after a representative meeting held in Multan has voted against the sitting chairman and appointed a new acting one, market sources said adding “the vote of no-confidence came in the wake of reports that the chairman was out of the country, while ginners were in crisis and victim of production glut”.

But the legal position in regard to ouster of a sitting chief is not clear and how he will react will be known by the next week, they added.

According to brokers, some of the leading growers of the central and southern Punjab still hold phutti of about 0.2 million bales, which they have been holding after the market collapse and prices have fallen to Rs450 per 40 kg.

After the re-entry of the TCP, prices of phutti did show modest increase but are said to be below their parity levels but now they are out to get out of the unsold stocks, they said and the consequent instability in prices.

Reports from the world yarn markets are not that encouraging, although spinners claim slight improvement in turnover not in prices.

Official spot rates did not show any change in the absence of ready business.