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Combined turnover of commodity exchanges fell by 25% to Rs 65.68 lakh crore in the first six months of 2013-14 due to a sharp decline in trading volumes in most commodities, according to the Forward Markets Commission (FMC).
These exchanges had done business of Rs 87.62 lakh crore in the April-September period of the 2012-13 fiscal, FMC said in a statement.
Maximum fall in business was seen in agricultural items, followed by bullion, metals and energy commodities, commodity markets regulator FMC noted.
Turnover from futures trading in agricultural items fell by 37.16% to Rs 7,47,102 crore in the April-September period of this fiscal, from Rs 11,88,870 crore in the same period last year, according to FMC data.
Similarly, the business from bullion dropped by 27% to Rs 29.62 lakh crore from Rs 40.61 lakh crore, while the turnover from metals declined by 24% to Rs 12.20 lakh crore from Rs 16.09 lakh crore in the review period.
The turnover from energy commodities like crude oil too fell by little over 14% to Rs 16.27 lakh crore in the first six months of this fiscal, as compared to Rs 19.02 lakh crore in the year-ago period.
There are 21 commodity exchanges in the country, of which six of them operate at the national level. They include MCX, NCDEX, NMCE, UCEX, ACE and ICEX.
