Comexes' turnover up despite slump

Despite the global economic meltdown, India’s commodity exchanges (comexes) recorded a 21.79 per cent growth in turnover in February 2009.

Though the total business in agri commodities plunged by 29 per cent to Rs 50,830.16 crore (Rs 70,664.99 crore), the total turnover in non-agri commodities, including base metals, precious metals, oil and gas, sharply shot up by 32.63 per cent to Rs 4,30,966.86 crore in February 2009 as compared to Rs 3,24,936.51 crore in the corresponding period last year.

The three national commodity exchanges — the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and the National Multi Commodity Exchange (NMCE) — cloaked a turnover of Rs 4,81,797 crore in February this year as compared to Rs 3,95,601.5 crore in the corresponding month last year.

Of this, MCX, largely concentrating in non-agri commodities, continued to lead with a turnover of Rs 4,24,424.69 crore, over 88 per cent of the total. The metal and oil and gas trading business flourished with a total turnover of Rs 3,49,719.87 crore (Rs 2,75,180.76 crore) and Rs 71,516.07 crore (Rs 43,512.76 crore) respectively. The turnover in agri commodities, however, has declined a phenomenal about 65 per cent to Rs 3188.74 crore in February 2009 as against Rs 9071.18 crore in the same month last year.

With its primary focus on agri commodities, NCDEX continued its downward trend with turnover falling to Rs 41,617.88 crore (Rs 64,428.30 crore), of which the turnover in agricultural commodities nosedived by 36.19 per cent to Rs 37,514.87 crore from Rs 58,794.07 crore.

The turnover in the metal segment also declined substantially from Rs 5,477.30 crore to Rs 2,893.90 crore. In contrast, the oil and gas sector witnessed a phenomenal surge in turnover from Rs 156.93 crore to Rs 1209.11 crore.

Total turnover of NMCE, mainly focusing in plantation, surpassed the expectation to hit Rs 15754.47 crore in February 2009 in comparison with Rs 3408.5 crore in the same month last year. Agricultural commodities witnessed a total business worth Rs 10126.55 crore in the second month of the calendar year as compared to Rs 2799.74 crore in the comparable month last year. Metal business perked up to Rs 2541.45 crore from “nil” last year while oil and gas fetched Rs 3086.47 crore as against Rs 608.76 crore.