The National Commodity and Derivative Exchange of India (NCDEX) will launch eight new commodity futures contracts by end-July. | |
| The contracts will be castor seed starting on July 23, 2004, guar gum and raw jute from July 26, sugar and turmeric from July 27, urad and yellow peas from July 28 and soymeal during the first week of August. |
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| With the addition of these commodity contracts, the total number of products offered by NCDEX would rise to 24, of which 22 were agri-commodities and two bullion. |
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| "We have been heartened by the response of our members for the exchange's agricultural contracts so far, which has prompted us to widen the menu to cover a much larger canvas in the agricultural spectrum", said PH Ravikumar, managing director and chief executive officer, NCDEX. |
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| "It is now accepted that agriculture is the strong backbone of the country and good gross domestic product (GDP) growth is not possible without a resilient agricultural performance. We, therefore, feel that futures contracts in all major agro-commodities should be offered by the exchange so that farmers in particular could insulate themselves from the vicissitudes of price movement," he said. |
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| He added these contracts will be able to immediately provide cover for the price risk being carried by its participants due to the uncertain monsoon and over time also consider offering a cover to protect the yield of farmers by providing a weather derivative mechanism. |
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| "The exchange has drawn contracts for these products after extensive discussions with all participants in the value chain of these commodities and we are confident that volumes on the Exchange would rise exponentially in these areas also as we are giving our members what the market wants", said Narendra Gupta, Chief Business Officer, NCDEX. |
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| NCDEX has over 310 members spread across over 140 locations and who are connected through 2000 trading terminals. Trading in agri-commodities account for about 65 per cent of its volumes and the balance 35 per cent is accounted for by the two bullion products. |
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