KARACHI, July 12: Active trading was witnessed on the cotton market on Thursday as spinners and mills lifted all the new crop lots offered by the central Punjab ginners below Rs3,100 per maund.

The interesting feature of the day’s activity was that all the deals were finalised on ready basis, which means that about a dozen ginning factories have resumed operations, floor brokers said.

But in the lower Sindh cotton belt where the picking operations of phutti are said to be now normal as there was no rains during the last couple of weeks but arrivals of phutti remained slow in most of the ginneries, they said.

There was a loud whispering in the market that some of the ginners from the central Punjab cotton belt were procuring Sindh phutti for mixing it with the Punjab type and were selling the lint to the mills and spinners.

Phutti rates were being quoted around Rs1,350 to Rs1,400 per 40-kg for both the lower Sindh and central Punjab varieties.

However, Sindh ginners were not inclined to finalise forward deals for delivery late July or before August 14 despite the fact that arrivals of phutti into their ginneries were normal.

It was in this background that official spot rates were again revised upward by Rs50 at Rs2,850 for average quality for the current crop but the new crop was selling above Rs3,000 per maund.

New York cotton futures on the other hand turned mixed as ruling October contracts showed a fresh fractional rise of 0.9 cents per lb at 65.25 and forward December fell by 0.16 cents at 66.92 cents per lb.

About 2,000 bales of new crop from the central Punjab ginneries changed hands as under: 400 bales, Haroonabad at Rs2,975, 600 bales, Burewala at Rs3,000 to Rs3,100, 200 bales, each Sahiwal and Arifwala at Rs3,060, 200 bales, Chistian Rs3,100, 200 bales, Chichawatni at Rs3,000 and 400 bales, Rohilawali at Rs3,075.