Commodities exchange: Contracts worth Rs44b traded in January

Exchange sees rapid increase in business this year.

KARACHI: The National Commodities Exchange Limited (NCEL) has announced that in January the exchange recorded trading in 159,469 contracts with a total value of Rs44.5 billion.

This marks a positive beginning for the year 2011 and business is expected to continue to grow rapidly, the NCEL said in a press release on Thursday. The growth has become possible because of increased investor interest, which follows a better understanding and awareness of the benefits of a regulated futures market.

Commodities, as an asset class, are well established globally and are now finding their place in investment portfolios of domestic investors also, the release added.

In January 2010, the NCEL’s trade value of Rs3.14 billion was only 1.8 per cent of the Karachi Stock Exchange’s trade value of Rs163.66 billion. By January this year, while KSE’s trade value moved up marginally to Rs166.47 billion, NCEL’s trade value rose to Rs44.48 billion, which was 26 per cent of the KSE’s trade value.

“It is encouraging to see a sustained rise in NCEL trading volume,” said Samir Ahmed, MD and CEO NCEL, “and we expect to see this trend continuing strongly with greater participation from individual and institutional investors as the product range grows during this year.”

NCEL is Pakistan’s first and only de-mutualised exchange with a 100 per cent institutional shareholding and is licensed and regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2011.