On rumours that India has deferred cotton exports until its crop size is finalized. There was panic buying from leading spinners to replenish their stocks fearing shortage of cotton due to short crop this season. Cotton market witnessed brisk trading on Tuesday in Pakistan.

The expected move from the Indian government has already pushed cotton prices high in India as this strongly indicates that the crop would also be short in India this season, brokers said.

Despite the fact that spinners are distributed over government’s indifference to their issues, they continue to meet their cotton demand in order to keep the industry’s wheels moving.

Due to short crop last year spinners imported around 2.8 million cotton bales from India. The crop is expected to be short this season, too, due to less area coming under cotton sowing.

Meanwhile, reports coming from interior of Sindh suggested that some cotton growing belts are under pink bollworm after recent rains. There was urgent need that the government should arrange pesticide spray on a war footing. Similarly, many cotton growing areas in central Punjab are facing the attack of white fly.

Last year the cotton crop was extensively damaged by pest attack and there was no proper arrangement from the government.

The arrivals of phutti (seed cotton), particularly in Punjab, have improved a lot and around 50,000 to 60,000 bales are reaching ginneries per day. In the coming days, phutti flow is expected to see further improvement.

Major deals on the ready counter were seen changing hands as per dealers: 2,600 bales from Sanghar done at Rs5,950 to Rs6,000, 2,000 bales Sahadadpur done at Rs6,000, 1,400 bales Hyderabad done at Rs6,000, 3,000 bales from Tando Adam done at Rs6,050, 1,600 bales Nawabshah done at Rs6,050 to Rs6,100, 2,000 bales Rohri done at Rs6,100, 1,000 bales Hasilpur done at Rs6,100 to Rs6,200, 1,200 bales Burewala done at Rs6,200, 800 bales Tonsa Sharif done at Rs6,200, 1,400 bales Vehari done at Rs6,200 to Rs6,250 and 600 bales Rahimyar Khan done at Rs6,250.

The Karachi Cotton Association raised its spot rate by Rs50 to Rs6,000 a maund (around 37 kilograms).