Commexes' turnover dips 4.5% in Apr-Oct

The turnover of India’s 21 commodity exchanges declined 4.53 per cent to Rs 101.55 lakh crore in the April-October period, owing to low participation in bullion trade, according to the Forward Markets Commission (FMC). In the corresponding period last year, the exchanges had recorded a turnover of Rs 106.36 lakh crore, FMC added.

The turnover from the bullion business fell 27.63 per cent to Rs 46.48 lakh crore, against Rs 64.23 lakh crore in the year-ago period.

However, there was a substantial jump in the turnover from energy, metals and farm items, FMC said. Business from energy items such as crude oil rose 42 per cent to Rs 22.51 lakh crore, against Rs 15.84 lakh crore in the year-ago period. While the turnover from metals increased 21.25 per cent to Rs 18.73 lakh crore, against Rs 15.45 lakh crore in the year-ago period, business from farm items rose 27.51 per cent to Rs 13.81 lakh crore, compared with Rs 10.83 lakh crore in the corresponding period last year, according to FMC data.

FMC said effective October 20, it had done away with special margins of 20 per cent on turmeric traders looking to buy the commodity through November and December contracts on the NCME and NMCE platforms. It added the government’s advisory panel, which met for the first time on October 16, had suggested relaunching guar futures, banned since March. “The committee members put forward many useful suggestions on increasing hedging benefits to farmers and better alignment of the futures market with the physical market. They also suggested allowing the relaunch of guar contracts,” FMC said.

India has five national and 16 regional level commodity exchanges.

Recently, FMC had allowed Universal Commodity Exchange to operate as a national bourse.