KARACHI, June 14: Listless conditions prevailed on the local cotton market where activity on Thursday remained extremely slow.

Barring a few small lot deals, the proceedings lacked buying and selling activity.

Floor brokers said that slackness in yarn and fabric market, along with worsening of energy crisis, is shrinking industrial activity in the country.

The textile industry is faced with double problem of energy and gas crises and both are essential for the value-added textile sector.

The lack of buying interest from spinners, coupled with unloading of stocks by exporters in the domestic market, is also having its toll over raw cotton prices which generally remained low.

Though the New York cotton market recovered partly from its past two days fall, but, in general, prices are still counted to be on lower side.

The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) spot rates remained unchanged at the overnight level.

On the ready counter, small lot transactions changed hands, as some needy millers lifted stocks to meet their immediate future requirement.

These are: 200 bales from station Karror Pakka done at Rs4,600, 400 bales from Qaboola done at Rs5,450, 2000 bales from Sadiqabad done at Rs5,800 and 400 bales from Khanpur done at Rs5,850.