KARACHI, March 17: The cotton market on Wednesday passed through another actively traded session as spinners and mills made fresh covering purchases after ginners lowered their asking prices.

According to unofficial reports, the arrival figure of phutti up to March 15 had risen to about 9.7m bales, signalling that the official crop target of 10m bales might be met.

Fearing further fall in local prices, ginners hastened to lower their selling prices and the consequent active physical business for the second session in a row.

The interesting feature was that for the second session in a row a big-lot business was witnessed as some of the leading spinners tried to grab floating stock of fine lots at around Rs3,000 per maund, excluding 15 per cent sales tax, brokers said.

A big lot of 6,500 bales, from the upper Sindh ginneries known for best quality of lint was sold at Rs3,00, but brokers said some other unspecified lots also changed hands details of which were not immediately confirmed.

Some of the spinners lifted low-mic lint from the central Sindh cotton belt at Rs2,500 on the lower side and at Rs2,850 on the higher side. Some contamination-free lots from the southern Punjab cotton belt were sold at the highest rate of Rs3.100.

The notable feature of the last three sessions trading was that ginners did not follow the rise and fall on the international market as they tried to get out of the impasse of larger unsold stock well in time, although some of them are selling lint at discount after having purchased phutti at much higher rates, market sources said.

Floor brokers said the revival of mill demand during the current week after several weeks' lull reflected some positive developments on the export front after the recent rebound of the New York cotton futures.

New York cotton futures on Tuesday ended further higher by 0.36 and 0.14 cents per lb at 65.79 and 66.90 for both the ruling May and the distant July settlements, respectively.

There was, however, no change in the official spot rates that were firmly held at the last levels. Ready offtake was active totalling about 15,000 bales as under:

SINDH TYPE: 1,000 bales, Mandodaro at Rs3,000; 6,500 bales, Salehpat also at Rs3,000; 200 bales, Tando Adam at Rs2,500; 400 bales, each Nawabshah and Tharo Shah at Rs2,850; 800 bales, Kandario at Rs2,750; and 400 bales, Hingoja at Rs2,650.