NMCE to launch 8-gm, 10-gm gold futures in August

The National Multi Commodity Exchange (NMCE) will launch 8 gm and 10 gm gold futures’ contracts in August, Chief Executive Officer Anil Mishra said today. The move is aimed at increasing the share of bullion trade in the bourse's annual turnover.

Mishra said the new monthly contracts are specially designed to meet the requirements of the untapped retail market. “Other exchanges have gold contracts which are meant for speculators or large traders. Existing gold futures are not meant for jewellers who want to trade in futures but cannot invest much. Our new contracts are small in denomination which is highly in demand in retail segment,” Mishra said at a press meet here.

The official said the bourse is in negotiations with a logistics company to open delivery centres across the country for these bullion contracts. “Initially, we will open four to five delivery centres in large cities. However, depending on the response and requirements, we are ready to scale up the number of centres to 1,000. We have already identified around 1,000 locations across the country,” Mishra said.

Mishra said the management of the bourse is aware that its performance in the bullion segment is weaker than other exchanges but the new contracts will help the bourse grow in this segment.

“Bullion contributed just 10 per cent in our total turnover in 2008-09 (Apr-Mar) of over Rs 1,22,900 crore, while the rest of the trade came from agri futures. We are looking at increasing our bullion trade share to 25 per cent of the total turnover,” Mishra said.