Pakistan cotton market witnessed slow move in trading activity on Monday as some spinning mills remained away from making new deals to see latest developments. This indicates that demand is sluggish owing to under utilization of the capacity by the spinning industry. On the other hand, large spinning groups continue to import cotton from neighbouring country and this has also slowed down considerably. The slow off-take of cotton yarn is also forcing spinners to be cautious and keep their production low.

According to floor brokers, the quality of phutti (seed cotton) currently reaching ginneries is not satisfactory and it seems the season 2015-16 will end much earlier due to short crop.

The official spot rate remained unchanged at Rs 5,300. In Sindh, seed cotton prices were lower by Rs 200 to Rs 2200 and Rs 2800 and in the Punjab rates also slid by Rs 100 to Rs 2300 and Rs 3000, dealers said.

In the ready business, the deals of over 10,000 bales of cotton finalised between Rs 5250 and Rs 5675.

According to cotton analyst Naseem Usman, it was alarming that the third and final picking has started which is a strong indicator the crop size would be much lower than being anticipated.

Major deals that took place on ready counter were: 800 bales from Nawabshah done at Rs5250 to Rs5300, 600 bales Moro at Rs5400, 2000 bales Khairpur at Rs5400 to Rs5450, 2000 bales Sukkur at Rs5400 to Rs5500, 400 bales Dharanwala at Rs5350, 600 bales Layyah at Rs5375 to Rs5400, 400 bales Tonsa Sharif at Rs5450, 400 bales Faqirwali at Rs5500, 600 bales Rajanpur at Rs5500, 600 bales Fort Abbas sone at Rs5550, 800 bales Haroonabad at Rs5550 and 600 bales Mianwali at Rs5675.