Ginners refrained from new deals on the cotton market on Saturday on short supply position, dealers said. The official spot rate was unchanged at Rs 8,800, they added. In the ready session, around 3000 bales of cotton finalised between Rs 8200-8800, they said. Prices of seed cotton in Sindh were at Rs 3000-3500 and in Punjab seed cotton prices were at Rs 3000-3600, they said.
According to the market sources said that demand of fine variety increasing with the passage of time due to short supply position. It is most likely ginners who have little number of cotton bales, refrained from new deals on expectations of further rise in the rates, they said.
Cotton analyst, Naseem Usman said that an encouraging development appeared that China to import 47 lacs bales of cotton from different countries to meet it's surging demand. Other positive factor is significant increase in demand of cotton yarn, giving an impression that rate to go up in the coming days, other brokers said.
In other parts of world, cotton prices were mostly firm owing to sustained demand. Reuters adds: ICE cotton futures settled higher on Friday as traders expected higher demand after reports that China would allow for some imports of cotton in the current year, with a weaker dollar further supporting prices.
The front-month cotton contract on ICE Futures US settled up 1.13 cent, or 1.5 percent, at 78.11 cents per lb. Total futures market volume rose by 3,266 to 63,040 lots. Data showed total open interest fell 2,980 to 216,476 contracts in the previous session.
The following deals reported: 300 bales of cotton from Shahdadpur at Rs 8300, 800 bales from Karachi (LDC to Mill) at Rs 8800 and 1800 bales from Haroonabad at Rs 8200, they said.

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The KCA Official Spot Rate for Local Dealings in Pakistan Rupees
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FOR BASE GRADE 3 STAPLE LENGTH 1-1/16"
                                    MICRONAIRE VALUE BETWEEN 3.8 TO 4.9 NCL
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Rate              Ex-Gin   Upcountry   Spot Rate    Spot Rate    Difference
                    For      Price     Ex-Karachi  Ex. KHI. As   Ex-Karachi
                                                  on 12-04-2019
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37.324 kg          8,800      160        8,960          8,960           Nil
Equivalent
40 kgs             9,431      171        9,602          9,602           Nil
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