NEW YORK, Nov 30: The US cotton sales are seen maintaining their blistering pace and a USDA export target of 9.40 million (480-lb) bales will probably be bested, industry analysts said Friday.

The US cotton sales in the last three weeks alone have hit 1,068,400 bales as falls in fibre futures to near 30-year lows spurred robust interest among consumers. Analysts now feel that total sales will likely soar above 10 million bales.

“As low as cotton prices are, it would (have been) foolish for consumers not to be buying cotton,” Frank Weathersby of brokers Affinity Trading in Destin, Florida, told Reuters in a phone interview.

The spot December cotton contract sank last month to a lifetime low of 28.20 cents a lb, a level unseen since 1972, before uncorking a rally that saw the contract close Thursday at 36.70 cents, up 0.92 cent on the day.

Jobe Moss of brokers and merchant MCM Inc. in Lubbock, Texas, said the massive sales had a salutary effect on the market.

“Anyway you look at it, it’s a million bales,” he said. “That’s a positive.”

Fibre prices have suffered mightily from record crops which brought on bumper supplies along with abysmal demand. Prices have crashed precipitously when compared to the 67-cent level posted in the New York market in August 2000.

But other analysts doubt whether the current pace of buying in U.S. cotton indicates a fundamental turnaround in the market.

They said hefty cotton purchases by some countries are probably meant for use by their textile and apparel industries for this year and in the years to come.

Sharon Johnson, cotton expert for Frank Schneider and Co. Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, said in an interview that Mexico was estimated to be importing 1.75 million bales of cotton in 2001/02 but has already booked orders for 1.95 million bales.—Reuters