**MARKET OUTLOOK**

India & International Market Highlights:

• Widespread whitefly damage to cotton crops in Pakistan could result in production levels falling to an 18-year low in 2015/16.

• Viscose prices have continued bottoming out in China after a small number of leading producers had previously agreed to lower their production.

North Zone:

Cotton traded steady tone across major spot markets of north India on Thursday. Prices were down Rs 05-10 per maund.  In Punjab, ready delivery cotton traded at Rs 3535-3540 a maund. In Haryana, it offered at Rs 3,510-3,520 while in Rajasthan, ready delivery new cotton quoted at Rs 3,470-3,530 a maund.

Central Zone:

Cotton spot prices steday tone across west India market on Thursday. Gujarat Sankar-6 cotton traded at  Rs 33700-34200 per candy. while B-Grade Cotton traded flat at Rs 33200-33500 per candy. V 797 cotton offered at Rs 22500-23500 a candy. While in Maharashtra, mech-1 good grade quoted at Rs 33700-34200 a candy.

South Zone:

Cotton spot price was steady tone across the major trading centers of south India.  

US Cotton Futures :

Cotton futures tumble: February 05, 2016 – Cotton futures fell on Wednesday despite a sharply weaker dollar and strength elsewhere in the commodity complex as investors hesitated to increase long positions ahead of the looming index fund roll, when large funds move positions forward from the front-month. “They don’t have a long time to build up a significant long,” said Louis Rose, independent cotton trader and consultant with Risk Analytics in Memphis, Tennessee. March cotton on ICE Futures US settled down 0.36 cent, or 0.58 percent, at 61.94 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 61.77 and 62.59 cents a lb. Total futures market volume fell by 4,576 to 43,027 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 2,126 to 197,632 contracts in the previous session. Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of February 2 totalled 26,614 480-lb bales, down from 27,784 in the previous session. The dollar index was down 1.70 percent. The Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index, which tracks 19 commodities, was up 2.50 percent. Copyright Reuters, 2016

Pakistan :

Cotton prices increase: February 05, 2016 — Karachi : Prices moved higher at the local cotton market on Thursday amid short supplies of high grade lint variety, brokers said.  The official spot rate held steady at Rs5,400 per maund. The Karachi Cotton Association (KCA) reported traders purchased 2,800 bales at Rs4,450 to Rs5,675 per maund as compared to Rs4,800 to Rs5,650/maund during previous trade. By and large, prices remained firm at the overnight level, but till the close of the trading session, some quality lint was quoted at higher prices.  “There is dearth of stocks lying with spinners and they see prices to remain on higher side in anticipation of shortfall in cotton production during the current season,” said a broker at Karachi Cotton Association. “The short supply prospects of cotton triggered buying at the market,” the broker said.  Many traders expect the cotton market to witness a steady trade on account of ease in demand for the cotton yarn by the spinners who are under capacity.

China :

Chinese industrial park in Ahmedabad to go functional by end of 2017: 2016-02-03 : The first Chinese general Industrial park with focus on textiles will be functional by the end of 2017 near Ahmedabad. The infrastructure for the park will be ready by 2017-end and some of the companies will begin setting up their units by the same time, said the country head of China Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (CASME) in India, Kamlesh Bhadani. An MoU for setting up this project was signed between China Development Bank and Gujarat government during the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2015. The state government has set up a high-power committee under the chairmanship of the additional chief secretary of industries for this project. A group of senior officials of CASME and China Development Bank, including Bhadani and vice-managing director of China Development Bank Xiao Ming Zhen, had met the state chief minister last month. Zhen had said that work on the $1 billion industrial park will begin soon. The ground breaking of the project is likely to be held in the next few months. Bhadani said that they are looking at two land pockets — one in Sanand and other on Ahmedabad-Rajkot highway. It is going to be a general park and its developer will be CASME. Once the Chinese New Year celebrations are over, they will be conducting road shows and other campaigns to create awareness about this industrial park among the Chinese firms. The work on project will be expedited from March. Bhadani, speaking about the focus on textile sector in this park said that many of the Chinese textile firms will prefer to have a local partner as they will be coming from different environment. There is hardly any value addition in India to the raw material which is exported to China. The Chinese textile companies will do manufacturing here in Gujarat and export the finished product to China, as there is a huge market for this in China Some of companies interested in the project have already visited Ahmedabad and few more will be coming soon. These firms would like to do due diligence before investing here. Besides bringing in investment, this park will also provide employment on a large scale.