KARACHI, July 9: Cotton market showed a firm trend on Wednesday as spinners and mills remained active buyers at the current levels amid fears about the size of the new crop.

Owing to steady mill demand, prices were quoted higher by Rs50 per maund, but spinners said “they are well within our export parity level and an alarm bell will ring if they cross the Rs4,000 per maund mark.”

“We are not inclined to repeat the previous season’s mistakes about the size of the crop,” said a leading spinner, adding “the current buying spree by the textile sector reflects fears both about the size of the crop and future price outlook.”

But some others said that persistent fall in the New York cotton futures over the last about week to 64.94 and 68.81 cents per lb owing to higher US crop ideas has also made imports competitive. Last season “we had to import lint around 74 cents per lb,” they added.

The size of the crop will be clear by late September and early October and till we were not inclined to take even a technical breather and miss to ride bandwagon, he said.

Previous year’s massive import of four million plus bales had taught us many a lesson, notable among them to rely on the indigenous crop rather than jumping for mid-season imports, which heat up world market, some others said.

According to private surveys carried out by the textile sector through its monitoring operative and by some other agencies, the crop could be in line with the official target as there is no pest attack on the early sown crop in the central Punjab cotton belt.

There was no change in the official spot rates, which were held unchanged at the last level of Rs3,650 per maund.

Mills ready off-take was active as till late in the evening about 5,000 bales changed hands, mostly from Punjab ginneries.

The following were some of the notable deals: 200 bales, Gojra at Rs3,800; 200 bales Haroonabad at Rs3,825; 800 bales, each Burewala and Arifwala; 600 bales, Chichawatni, Mian Channu, Pak Pattan, and 400 bales, Depalpur at Rs3,800 to Rs3,850.

A maiden deal of 200 bales, from a Shahdadpur ginnery was reported also at Rs3,850 per maund.