NMCE to revive dud papers

The National Multi-Commodity Exchange of India (NMCE) is scouting for various options to activate illiquid commodities on its platform by setting up marketing and knowledge management bases in the heart of crop-growing areas. Out of the 61 listed commodities traded at the exchange, 51 are reportedly illiquid.

Recently, the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) instructed all commodity exchanges to prune the list of illiquid commodities or activate them.

"We have intensified our marketing efforts by setting up regional offices in the crop cultivation areas and successfully attracted some members for specific commodities trades," said Poonam Gupta, vice president, corporate co-ordination, NMCE.

"The result of our efforts is staggering. Our membership base, which was almost stagnant till September, rose by 31 to 160 in last four months," Poonam added.

Since every commodities traded on NMCE is under compulsory delivery, the third largest commodity exchange in the country is banking on its tie-up with Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) to ensure timely and qualitative delivery to traders.

CWC has about 500 warehouses across the country and facilitates storing of all agri commodities, but the NMCE remains selective for specific commodities in specific warehouses.

The exchange claims to have touched a milestone in rubber inventory in January, which shot up to 12,000 tonne against the normal stock of 5,500-6,000 tonne.

Denying any possibility to launch contracts in new commodities, Poonam said the exchange was going by the FMC guidlines, which asked it to strengthen the existing contracts under discounted trade.

The Ahmedabad-based exchange recorded a 72 per cent growth in turnover at Rs 1,474.16 crore in the first half of January compared with Rs 853 crore during the second half of December.