Spot rubber improves further

Spot rubber improves further

Kottayam, March 13

Spot rubber improved further on Saturday. The prices were firm on expectations that the market would remain bullish and hit the magical level of Rs 150 a kg for RSS 4 during the week ahead. Sheet rubber improved to Rs 149 from Rs 148 a kg on fresh buying and short covering.

Futures firm

The March futures closed at Rs 149.25 (149.13), April at Rs 152.64 (152.32), May at Rs 155.81 (156.16) and June at Rs 157.64 (158.69) a kg on National Multi Commodity Exchange (NMCE).

Spot rates were (Rs/kg): RSS-4: 149 (148); RSS-5: 147 (146.50); ungraded: 145.50 (145); ISNR 20: 146 (145) and latex 60 per cent: 95 (95).


Agri commodities futures not responsible for inflation: NCDEX


Kolkata, March 13

The National Commodity and Derivative Exchange (NCDEX), one of the leading commodity exchanges in the country, has denied the allegation that the futures trading in agricultural commodities is responsible for price inflation. The Chief Business Officer of NCDEX, Mr Vijay Kumar, said here on Saturday that the demand-supply gap has been the single most important factor for higher inflation.

He also considered unwarranted the continuing ban on futures trading in commodities such as rice, sugar, urad and tur. The Government imposed a ban on rice and wheat in 2008. It imposed a ban on futures trading on sugar, urad and tur in 2009. The Left parties are vocal in banning the futures trading in commodities all together as they feel that “speculative” futures trading is behind the rising inflation, particularly in food items. Commodity exchange circles also argue that the hike in minimum support prices has led to higher commodity prices. “Futures trading in commodities enables fair and transparent price discovery mechanism,” Mr Kumar said. He was addressing a conference here, organised jointly by the Forward Markets Commission (FMC), the commodity markets regulator, and NCDEX on the subject “Futures Trading – A Price Messenger”.

Awareness campaign

The FMC is currently holding an awareness campaign on futures trading in commodities. The NCDEX official pointed out that the present trend of high inflation is evident for the commodities not traded on the exchanges. Despite the ban on futures trading for certain commodities, their prices have been rising consistently in the recent months.

“The inflation is much higher in products that are not traded on future exchanges such as tur, urad, moong, vegetables, fruits, milk etc relative to those that are traded,” Mr Kumar added.

Ban in futures trading in products such as sugar has not brought down the price.

Meanwhile, NCDEX is in talks with some public sector oil marketing companies to source some of their crude requirement from the exchange's platform. “We are talking to large Indian participants such as IOC and BPCL, which use Nymex or Singapore OTC market, to source a part of their crude purchases domestically from us,” Mr Kumar.

The exchange is working for integration of spot markets through the exchange's electronic platform in the country. In some of the States it has obtained permission. “We need to make futures contracts for crude palm, largest edible oil import, oil more popular so that it becomes liquid as those of soya,” he added.