KARACHI, March 7: Cotton prices on Monday eased by Rs25 from the recent highs as some of the ginners sold inferior lots in a bit haste to clear the backlog.

Cotton analysts failed to give any specific reasons for the price decline despite lower arrival of phutti and an expected pressure on supplies but some of them said larger imports by leading mills and spinners appeared to be the one of the major destabilizing factors. However, one thing appears certain if the forward deals of about a million bales are correct, hopes of any price flare-up in local lint could be elusive.

Floor brokers said ginners holding odd lots of inferior stuff indulged in hasty-selling as they were not expecting any further increase in prices followed by reports of absence of private sector exporters.

Exporters up to Jan 23, 2005 have registered 0.573m bales of lint with the Export Promotion Bureau against their forward sales to their foreign trading partners. The market sources said the exporters had already covered their forward positions and were out of the market in the absence of fresh orders and falling unsold stocks with the ginners.

Ginners, notably from the Central Sindh cotton belt who have been awaiting fresh orders from the exporters unloaded their positions fearing further decline in prices, brokers said.

Spinners and mills are now trying to grab falling stocks of fine lots and do not opt for low-mic lint, which did not conform to their export parity levels but some of the local mills, which produced low-count cotton yarn, are indulging in stray buying, they said.

After a progressive increase over the last two weeks, official spot rates were lowered by Rs25 at Rs2,300 per maund but in the ready section some of the inferior lots were sold well below them.

Ready business was light totalling about 5,000 bales as under: 1,000 bales, upper Sindh at Rs2,350, 1,000 bales, Shahdadpur at Rs2,275, 100 bales at Rs2,150, 150 bales, Rhimyar Khan at Rs2,300 and 500 bales at Rs2,250.