Volume-wise: Commodities exchange beats stock markets

New products, low cost attract investors.

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Mercantile Exchange (PMEX) has announced that in April its trading volumes for the first time exceeded combined volumes of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad stock markets in terms of rupees.

On Thursday, PMEX said it saw a record trading volume of Rs68.1 billion in April compared with a combined volume of Rs66.2 billion for the stock exchanges, which reflected year-on-year growth of 800 per cent as in April 2010 the volume was Rs8.4 billion.

PMEX said the increasing growth was the result of continuous introduction of new products coupled with low transaction costs and an efficient web-based IT system that made it easy for brokers and clients to manage their trades.

“With the establishment of PMEX, investors now have a regulated and transparent domestic platform to trade commodities and hedge their price risks,” said the exchange’s Managing Director, Samir Ahmed.

PMEX is the only commodity and financial futures exchange in the country. It currently trades contracts in gold, silver, crude oil, rice, palm olein and Kibor futures.

It expects to add wheat, maize, cotton and currency contracts this year.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2011.