NEW DELHI, Oct 7: Commodity markets regulator FMC today said it will take a decision on October 16 on listing of guar futures again.
In March this year, FMC had banned futures trading in guarseed and guargum, which is increasingly used in oil and gas industry, to curb price volatility and speculation.
“The decision on re-listing of guar futures will be taken at the first meeting of the Advisory Committee to be held on October 16,” Forward Markets Commission (FMC) Chairman Ramesh Abhishek told.
The Advisory Committee, headed by the FMC chief, has 40 members representing Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), promoters of commodity bourses, farmers, co-operatives among others, he said.
Besides guar futures, the Committee will discuss ways to curb speculation and increase hedging volumes in the futures market, he added.
Asked if the decision on lifting the ban on rice, tur and urad futures would also be taken at the meeting, Abhishek said, “The three commodities have been suspended for sometime now and there is no proposal to remove the ban now.”
The ban on rice, tur and urad was imposed in early 2007 following a steep rise in prices.
Leading agri-commodity bourse NCDEX has asked FMC to give permission to re-list guar gum and guar seed futures.
Guar gum is extracted from guar seed, production of which is around 10 lakh tonnes in the country. India is the world’s biggest exporter of the commodity.
On falling turnover at commodity exchanges, Abhishek said that it was more concerned about qualitative volumes.
“While the turnover from bullion has come down in the last few months, the business from agriculture and base metals has grown by 30-40 per cent. We are really looking at hedging volumes and not speculative volumes,” he said.
The turnover of 21 commodity bourses has declined by 2.54 per cent to Rs 80.30 lakh crore till September 15 of the current fiscal from Rs 82.39 lakh crore in the year-ago.
At present, the country has five national and 16 regional level commodity exchanges in the country. Recently, the FMC gave approval to the Universal Commodity Exchange to operate as a national bourse. (PTI)
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