Further rains in the country caused marginal improvement in the rates on the cotton market on Saturday in the process of lean business, dealers said. The official spot rate was unchanged at Rs 5000, dealers said. In the ready session, around 3,000 bales of cotton changed hands between Rs 4750 and Rs 5275, they said. The prices of seed cotton in Sindh were at Rs 1900 and Rs 2350 and in Punjab rates were at Rs 2000 and Rs 2650, they said.

Marketmen said most of leading buyers were on the sidelines due to dearth of lint cotton and partly because of fresh rains in the cotton belt. Cotton experts, Naseem Usman said that tight supply of quality cotton is helping rates to stabilise and late sowing is also solid reason behind the persistent demand.

Adds Reuters: Cotton on ICE Futures US fell on Friday to the biggest weekly loss since November as the strong US dollar reinforced worries about demand. The front-month May cotton contract on ICE closed down 0.72 cent, or 1.2 percent, at 60.50 cents a lb, after trading near Thursday's five-week low of 60.26 cents throughout much of the day. The front-month has finished down 11 of the last 12 sessions. It slid to a 3.9 percent weekly loss this week, amid a broad commodities selling spree.

The following deals reported: 400 bales of cotton from Kot Banglow at Rs 4950, same figure from Lodhran at Rs 4750, equal figure from Fort Abbas at Rs 4900, 200 bales from Mian Chano at Rs 5100, 600 bales from Sadiqabad at Rs 5200-5250 and 800 bales from Mianwali at Rs 5200-5275, they added.