Commexes' turnover slides 60 per cent in April-July

Turnover of commodity bourses dropped by 60 per cent to Rs 20.17 lakh crore during April- July of this fiscal due to a fall in trading volumes in most commodities, according to the Forward Markets Commission.
The exchanges logged a business of Rs 50.29 lakh crore in the same period last year.
Much of the fall in futures trade volumes was witnessed in bullion, followed by energy, metals and farm items, as per the data released by the commodity markets regulator FMC.
According to FMC data, the turnover from bullion fell by 69 per cent to Rs 7.18 lakh crore in April-July of this fiscal from Rs 22.93 lakh crore a year ago.

Similarly, the business from energy items like crude oil declined by 67 per cent to Rs 4.31 lakh crore from Rs 12.93 lakh crore and the turnover from metals dropped by 54 per cent to Rs 4.41 lakh crore from Rs 9.52 lakh crore.
The turnover from agricultural commodities declined by 15 per cent to Rs 4.15 lakh crore in the April-July period of this financial year from Rs 4.89 lakh crore a year ago.

Experts said the fall in business at most of the exchanges' platform was due to imposition of commodity transaction tax since last year.
The dent in investor sentiment after the Rs 5,600 crore payment scam surfaced at spot exchange NSEL also weighed, they added.

Currently, five national and six regional level commodity exchanges are operating in the country.