KARACHI: Tight phutti (seed cotton) supply kept the cotton market firm on Wednesday as spinners continued to look for quality lint.

Floor brokers said that as picking in Punjab for new cotton crop season has yet to gain momentum, the phutti flow from Sindh cotton fields has slowed down after the first picking ended.

Furthermore, the ginners in Sindh in a meeting held on Wednesday decided not to lift phutti from growers above the threshold of Rs2,450 per 40kg.

Though there was strongdemand from spinners for quality cotton, slow arrivals of phutti in Sindh is causing demand and supply issue. As a result cotton prices remained firm and activity was fairly brisk.

A report that the country loses around three million cotton bales annually because of pest attack, and lack of research and development of new seed varieties shocked the market because this translates into loss of around Rs80 billion to Rs90bn.

Major deals reported on ready counter were: 1,600 bales from Sanghar done at Rs4700toRs4750,1000 bales Shahdadpur at Rs4700 to Rs4750, 800 bales TandoAdam at Rs4700 to Ts4750, 600 bales Hyderabad at Rs4750, 1000 bales Shahdadpur at Rs4725 to Rs4750, 800 bales Mirpurkhas at Rs4750, 400 bales Chichawatni at Rs4800, 600 bales Burewala at Rs4750, 600 bales Khanewal at Rs4750, 600bales Kotri at Rs4705 to Rs4755 and 400 bales Mian Channu at Rs4750.

The world cotton market also remained firm where New York market finished higher for third consecutive session as all the future contracts closed with fresh gains.