TEHRAN- During weekdays ending up to July 18, while 589,761 million tons (MT) of commodities worth over $642 million were traded at Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME), the trading volume and value experienced a growth of 46 percent and 37 percent, respectively.

According to the report from IME International Affairs and Public Relations Department, last week, on the domestic and export metal and mineral trading floor of IME, 247,558 MT of various products worth close to $284 million were traded.

On this trading floor, 233,456 MT of steel, 1,570 MT of copper, 2,400 MT of aluminum, 120 MT of molybdenum concentrates, 12 MT of precious metal concentrates, 5,000 MT of coke as well as 5,000 MT of iron ore were traded by customers.

The report declares that on domestic and export oil and petrochemical trading floors of IME, 341,879 MT of different commodities with the total value of $361 million were traded.

On this trading floor, 95,780 MT of VB feed stock, 109,325 MT of bitumen, 49,062 MT of polymer products, 19,570 MT of chemical products, 1,632 MT of insulation, 51,500 MT of lube cut oil, 50 MT of slaps waxes as well as 15,000 MT of sulfur were traded.

Furthermore, 324 MT of commodities were traded on the side market of IME.

On June 24, during the meeting of IME shareholders, IME Managing Director Hamed Soltani-Nejad said that this exchange has prepared ten macro plans to improve its performance during the current Iranian calendar year (ends on March 19, 2020).

He mentioned development of underlying assets through existing instruments, development of financial instruments for commodity-backed securities, expansion of market size and depth, increasing cooperation with other organizations, and strengthening IME brand as some of the mentioned macro plans.

Soltani-Nejad has previously announced that IME accounted for 39 percent of the value of the total trades in the Iranian capital market during the past Iranian calendar year.

He put the value of IME trades at 1.78 quadrillion rials (about $42.3 billion) in the past year.

The value of trades at IME rose 52 percent in the past calendar year from its previous year.

Over 24.84 million tons of commodities valued at 884.3 trillion rials (about $21.05 billion) were traded at the physical market of IME, showing seven percent fall in the amount and 77 percent rise in the worth of trades year on year.

Applying new financial instruments in Iranian capital market was one of the achievements of the country’s exchange markets during the past year. 

In this due, IME launched “option” in early March 2019 in an approach to diversify financing methods for agricultural products.

Option is a contract which gives the buyer (the owner or holder of the option) the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price prior to or on a specified date, depending on the form of the option. 

MA/MA