Non-delivery commodities trade on FMC's agenda

Forward Markets Commission (FMC) Director Anupam Mishra said the market regulator is open to the idea of trading in non-deliverable commodities.

The definition of commodities has been changed in the proposed bill to amend the Forward Contract (Regulation) Act, to include non-deliverable commodities, Mishra said.

Mishra was speaking on the sidelines of an awareness program on commodity derivatives, organised jointly by MCX and FMC.

The bill introduced in Parliament on March 15, seeks to include trading in non-deliverable commodities such as weather, index and freight, he said.

Mishra said MCX and the National Commodity and Derivative Exchange together, in terms of value, have mopped up 95 per cent of the country's futures' trade.

FMC regularly receives complaint about quality of commodities delivered by the exchanges and dispute over prices at contract expiry, he said."These issues would be resolved once the Warehousing Development Bill and FCRA amendments come through," he said.

To protect the rights of investors the regulator has directed the exchanges to institute Investors' Protection Fund, he said.