The country's first commodity exchange, National Commodity Exchange Limited (NCEL), soon after the approval of the trading draft by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), will start futures trading in rice.
NCEL Managing Director Asim Jang told Business Recorder on Tuesday that the processor and trading draft for rice had been finalised by the products committee of NCEL, which would be presented for approval in the next board meeting, scheduled to be held under the chairmanship of Shaukat Tareen on October 3.
The draft would be submitted to the SECP for final approval during the next two weeks, he added. "We have planned that after the approval of the SECP, rice futures trading would start after Eid-ul-Fitr," he said, and added that rice trading would also be based on three-month futures trading.
Following the successful futures trading in yellow metal in the first phase, the NCEL, the first commodity exchange of the country, set up for trading in the commodities, had selected rice for futures trading in the second phase, said the NCEL Managing Director.
To begin with, trading of IRRI-6 would be started, as it would be available in huge quantity as compared to basmati rice, he said. Asim Jang said: "We are arranging warehouses to store rice and some have already been acquired at Port Qasim." The NECL started operations on May 11 with the three-month futures trading in gold and the first delivery was successfully executed in mid-August. He further said other commodities, including cotton and wheat, would be traded later.
He said the NCEL was a unique platform for futures trading of commodities. It had been set up for the promotion of farming and trading in rice at the NCEL would not result in price hike in the local market, rather it would primarily provide benefits to the consumers, he added. Meanwhile, some leading rice exporters and rice growers of Sindh have already become members of the NCEL, while some exporters and growers, besides traders, had applied for membership, he said.
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