KARACHI, June 21: Trading on the cotton market on Monday resumed on a cheerless note as both spinners and mills remained conspicuous by their absence despite the fact that some of the ginners have lowered their asking prices.

Floor brokers said after a long wait, the ginners were now trying to get out of the market losing all hopes of a better prices in the backdrop of a short crop. "Ginners holding an unsold stock of below half a million bales may not have been relying on their weak holding capacity because of year-end factors, but spinners have outwitted them after having made massive imports," they said.

There was loud whispering in the market that spinners were making forward buying at each fall on the New Cotton Exchange beginning from 65 cents per lb but what surprised everyone was larger import figure of over 2m bales.

"Ginners were pretty sure that spinners can lift their unsold stocks just in couple of days but weaker among them have now lost all hopes about the re-entry of spinners in the market at a bigger scale," market sources said.

That is perhaps why there is a confusion in the ginning circles how to get out of the current situation without suffering heavy losses and as a first step some of them have already lowered their asking prices, they said.

Analysts said no one could dispute the fact that the mill intake has undergone a significant change after over a 100 sick units have resumed commercial production and higher export business but what surprised ginners was the hefty import figure, which in their opinion is well above their annual consumption needs.

Although new crop deals are being finalized around Rs3,000 per maund, ginners are unsure about the future price outlook as carryover stocks of mills and spinners will influence new crop prices on the lower side, they fear.

Meanwhile, reports coming in from the major growing areas about the rain are welcome here despite fears of pest breeding in a cool weather. But it is beneficial for the tender plants and helps in their growth.

Some of the spinners have lowered the asking prices but spinners were not inclined to make fresh commitments for the near-term but there was no change in the official spot rates.

Ready offtake was light but some brokers reported a business of about 1,500 bales, finalized between the ginners of southern Punjab and central Punjab textile mills.