NCDEX introduces long staple cotton bales futures contract

Leading commodity exchange National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX) today announced the launch of a long staple (29 mm) cotton bales contract.

The exchange will facilitate delivery of 29 mm cotton bales through Comtrack, its proprietary electronic commodity account ting system. The delivery centres are located in Maharashtra and Gujarat, the two main cotton producing states, NCDEX said in a statement here.

With this the NCDEX cotton basket now spans the entire product line from kapas and bales to cotton seed and cotton seed oil-cake. This will give players across the value chain an opportunity to hedge their price risk.

"We provide the largest marketplace for the cotton industry. With this contract, we have plugged the only missing piece. So, the industry can now use all hedging and price discovery solutions on a single platform," NCDEX MD and CEO Samir Shah said.

Cotton is India's largest cash crop with total annual production of around 330 lakh bales of 170 kg each. The long staple varieties have a 78 per cent share.

The 29 mm cotton is a fine grade long staple variety of cotton (29 mm refers to the staple length). It is mainly grown in Gujarat, followed by Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.