KARACHI, March 16: The buyers continued to dominate the cotton scene on Monday as prices kept falling due to panic selling by the ginners.

High-grade lint price fell below the Rs3,000 level though even offerings at lower prices failed to evoke positive response from the buyers.

Ready business remained confined to odd lots sold at Rs2,900/3,100 for prime lots of Punjab and upper Sindh. Official spot rate was however nominally quoted unchanged at Rs3,000.

The ground realities indicate that the flow of cotton arrivals from fields to market places or ginning factories may continue beyond March against the earlier expectations.

The size of the crop now appears quite realistically around 10 million bales. Domestic consumption of cotton is on the increase and is now estimated at 12.5 or 3 million bales.

While preparing the balance sheet of Pakistan cotton, international agencies fail to take cognizance of the fact that about one million bales of locally produced cotton waste is re-used by the spinning industry which actually puts the domestic requirements for raw cotton between 11.5 and 12 million bales.

Thus cotton import this year may between 1.5 and 2 million bales. For whatever little seed-cotton, which is still arriving from certain areas, its prices have gone down.

Thus the price of phutti from Sindh is ranging between Rs900 and Rs1,050 per 40kg while in the Punjab, they are reported to be ranging from Rs850 to Rs1,100 per 40 kg.

However, the notable point is that few ginners are interested in picking up seed-cotton even at these depressed rates.

Ready business stood at 3,000 bales out of which 400 bales Kot Diji were sold at Rs2,900, 1,000 bales Jalalpur at Rs2,900, 300 bales Rahimyar Khan at Rs3,010 and 200 bales Khanpur at Rs3,100.

The News International, Pakistan