KARACHI, Jan 17: Cotton market on Monday reopened on a dull note as both ginners and spinners kept to the sidelines awaiting the release of arrival figures of phutti for the fortnight ended Jan 15, 2005.

Although the crop monitoring committee has already announced crop figure around 14.6m bales in its latest assessment, but spinners were keen to have a look at the official arrival figures to be released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA).

Spinners said the actual arrival figures would give a fair idea of the total crop and its impact on the prevailing prices. If the figures match with those released last week by the official monitoring committee then there may not be any pressure on the future supplies and prices would remain competitive.

But official sources expect an exportable surplus of about 2.5m bales after meeting the local demand as they thought that the mill consumption may not hit the figure of 13m bales.

The TCP has already invited international tenders for 25,000 bales late last month, for which highest price was offered around 42 cents per lb and some of the bids totalling about 10,000 bales was accepted.

The underlying sentiment was also affected by the forthcoming eid holidays and the allied problems including expensive freight charges, although ready rates stable around the previous levels.

Analysts said the future direction of the market would be guided by the production figures due possibly before the holidays but ruled out the possibility of any major either-way change.

However, one thing is clear that spinners and mills still have to go a long way to cover the annual consumption needs and that may work on both sides of fence, they said. Official spot rates were, therefore, again quoted at the previous levels but some of the deals reported in the ready section were done above them.

Stray business was, however, reported in the ready section as local mills lifted modest lots on ready basis from for delivery before holidays. Fine lots were traded around Rs2,000 to Rs2,050 per maund, while inferior ones were sold around Rs1,800.