KARACHI: Cotton prices remained steady though trading activity slowed down on Monday.
According to market analysts, leading spinners seemed to focus on cotton imports and only small textile spinning units were buying to meet their near-term needs.
Meanwhile, cotton production fell 7.23 per cent to 10.605 million bales up to Feb 1 as against 11.432m bales produced in the same period last season.
The arrivals of phutti (seed-cotton) from the fields into ginneries is declining rapidly.
However, small lot deals originating from a few needy spinners generated little trading activity and remained restricted to quality cotton.
The world leading cotton markets were steady with New York cotton recovering recent losses. The Chinese cotton market would remain closed from Feb 4-10 on account of the Chinese New Year.
The Karachi Cotton Association spot rates were firm at weekend level at Rs8,700 per maund.
The following deals were reported to have transpired on the ready counter: 1,500 bales from Bahawalnager were done at Rs8,050; 1,600 bales, Rajanpur, at Rs8,800-8,850; 1,200 bales, Gojra, at Rs7,700 and 400 bales from Fort Abbas were done at Rs8,000.
