MUMBAI (Commoditiescontrol) - Cotton prices continued to rule weak at major markets in Central and South India on Saturday due to the decline in demand from both the mills and exporters amid negative global cues.
Arrivals today stood at 38,000 bales in Gujarat, 48,000 bales in Maharashtra, 12,500 bales in Madhya Pradesh, 25,000 bales in Andhra Pradesh & Telangana and 11,000 bales in Karnataka.
According to traders, demand from mills was weak today as overnight fall in the global market has further weakened the sentiment. While the export demand continued to remain listless due to the outbreak of coronavirus in China.
Globally, US cotton futures on the ICE fell to a one-week low on Friday as investors tried to gauge the coronavirus epidemic's impact on China's economy, with cases continuing to mount.
Cotton contracts for March settled down 34 points at 67.41 cents per lb, having earlier hit 67.21, their lowest since Feb. 7. Prices were down about 0.5 percent for the week.
Meanwhile, the death toll from a coronavirus outbreak in mainland China rose to 1,523 as of the end of Friday, after 143 people died over the course of the day, the country's National Health Commission said on Saturday morning.
The number of new deaths in central Hubei province, at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, rose by 139 as of Friday.
Most of the new deaths were in Hubei's provincial capital of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated, with 107 new deaths. A total of 1,123 people in Wuhan have now died from the coronavirus.
There were 2,641 new confirmed infections across mainland China, bringing the national total to 66,492.