Date:08/06/2005 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/06/08/stories/2005060801391000.htm

Back NMCE launches T+2 spot contracts in rubber, pepper

Our Bureau

The Spices Board Chairman, Mr C.J. Jose (right), and Mr D.K. Mukhopadhyay, Senior Economic Advisor, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, at the launch of the T+2 contracts for pepper and rubber in the city on Tuesday. — Vipin Chandran

Kochi , June 7

THE National Multi Commodity Exchange of India on Tuesday launched T+2 spot contracts in RSS 4 grade rubber and Malabar garbled black pepper. This will facilitate trading and settlement in two days.

In his inaugural address, Mr D.K. Mukhopadhyay, Senior Economic Advisor, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, urged the commodity exchanges in the country to provide innovative ideas to attract growers to online spot trading.

At present, most of the farmers were not involved in commodity futures trading even as its importance was gaining significance in the country, he said.

Agriculture could not be neglected in the country even though it was lagging behind among other sectors due to various reasons like poor credit flow, anomalies in Land Reforms Act etc. The Government was emphasising more on futures trading by providing adequate infrastructure facilities like warehouses, he said.

Launching the T+2 contract in pepper, Mr C.J. Jose, Chairman, Spices Board, said NMCE should revive old varieties in spices such as Tellichery Garbled extra bold pepper by bringing them into futures trading. Mr S.M. Desalphine, Chairman, Rubber Board, launched the T+2 contracts in rubber. He said the Rubber Board had given a suggestion to provide an incentive to growers to participate in futures trading.

Mr N.K.Choubey, Managing Director, Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), said the Corporation had the storage capacity of 10 million tonnes and the State Warehousing another 22 million tonnes taking the total capacity to 32 million tonnes. The CWC had warehouses in 2,000 locations and plans to add more so that the warehousing facility can be extended to all the farmers in various regions.

Mr Kailash Gupta, Managing Director, NMCE, said the commencement of T+2 basis spot contracts would be a unique concept to provide dependable basis price for the futures contracts. It would also restrict the wide fluctuations in the futures market.