London, Feb. 12.
Commodities, generally, remained quiet and featureless to-day.
London Rubber: Spot, buyers 6jj unch; sellers 7), unch: March del. buyers 7 unch; sellers Ty—yh:
London Sugar (Buyers): Mar. 5/3 +14; May 5/5 Aug. 5/6 +44; Liverpool Wheat: March 7/714 May 1/614—i!&; July 7/6
Liverpool Cotton: American Futures:
March 490 unch; May 498 L1; July 5.00 unch; Sept. 5.04 +1; Egyptian Futures (Giza, F.G.F. No. 7): March September 7.16 45; Seo io, May 110 +6; July 716 +5; London Metals: closed—Reuter, The plan is being shaped to avoid conflict with Japan's strict import control law.
Cotton may be obtained also from India under similar arrangement but the association decided to start with American cotton and explore that situation first, [Ethiopia also still holds possibilities, Japan having obtained some concessions from Italy.
Japan's purchased of American cotton in 1936 amounted to 1,564,111 bales. The imports from January to September, 1937, were 1,075,961 bales, an increase of about 28000 bales over the corresponding 1930 period.
An import regulation plan for cotton has been put into force in Japan with purchase of raw cotton restricted to 1,050,000 piculs p month. A picul is equivalent to 133 pounds, Japan has no intention of curtailing her exports of textiles and any reduction in textile trade will be in home consumption.
Control of cotton importation and fixing of prices for yarns are expected to result in keeping the prices of Japanese textiles low enough to give Japan a competitive advantage in world markets and bring a revival of export activity in Japanese-made cotton goods,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.