KARACHI, Jan 18: Cotton prices on Wednesday rose further by Rs75 per maund as below market expectations fortnightly arrivals of phutti into the ginneries triggered panic mill buying.

In physical trading some of the deals were finalized as higher as Rs2,575 per maund and analysts predicted an imminent price flare-up in the coming weeks.

An idea of panic mill buying may well be had from the fact that they tried to grab the floating stock indulging in big-lot deals including 5,000 and 6,000 bales.

According to official arrival figures released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) for the fortnight ended January 15, total arrivals of phutti amounted to 11.661m bales as compared to last year’s 13.761m bales, showing a fall of 15.27 per cent over the previous total.

Mill purchases at 8.957m bales were also lower as compared to last season’s 10.070m bales, owing to restricted buying in an apparent effort to keep prices within the export parity levels.

“What seems to have worried them about the future supplies was a sharp decline in unsold stocks at 1.784m bales as compared to 2.640m bales a fortnight earlier, which could well lead to a fresh price flare-up in the coming weeks”, brokers said.

Indications are, however, that the revised target of 12.5m bales may achieved but there is a remote possibility of achieving the original target of 15m bales plus, they said.

Pakistan’s textile industry, which is chasing the export target of $14 billion, needs about 15m bales of lint to meet its annual consumption demand and the crop is too short too meet it.

The supply gap is expected to be met through further imports and seeking official permission to buy half a million bales from the buffer stocks lying in the godowns of the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP), brokers said.

Official spot rates were quoted higher by Rs75 per maund, while New York cotton future showed fractional rise of 0.06 and 0.08 cents at 55.99 and 57.15 cents per lb for both the ruling March and the forward May contracts respectively. Ready off-take was large totalling about 25,000 bales as under:

SINDH TYPE: 5,000 bales, upper Sindh, at Rs2,465 to Rs2,500.