Diamond, eggs among 6 new commodities for derivative tradings

NEW DELHI: Six more commodities including diamond, tea and eggs were added to the list of products notified today for derivative tradings on the exchanges.

In consultation with markets regulator Sebi and on suggestions of an expert committee headed by NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand, the government has notified a consolidated list of 91 commodities, up from 85 so far, on which derivative contracts can be launched and traded on the exchanges.

The new commodities also include cocoa, pig iron and brass.

The committee had suggested a total of eight additions to the list but only six have been added.

The notification has come into effect from today, Sebi said in a circular, while asking exchanges to take steps to make necessary amendments to the relevant rules and regulations for the implementation of the same.

Among others in the list are coffee, sugar, guar silk, carbon credit, diesel and petrol, wheat, cardamom, chillies, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, turmeric.

Some precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum are also included in the list wherein derivative contracts can be launched and traded on the exchanges.

Sebi has asked commodity exchanges to inform it about the status of the implementation of the provisions of this circular.

Sebi had started regulating commodity markets after the merger of Forward Markets Commission (FMC) with the markets regulator in September last year.

The turnover of commodity exchanges stood at Rs 67 lakh crore in 2015-16, up 9 per cent from the preceding fiscal.

At the end of June, the aggregate turnover in agricultural commodities at all the three national exchanges - MCX, NCDEX and NMCE - stood at Rs 77,696 crore, while that of the non-agricultural commodities was at Rs 5.73 lakh crore.