TEHRAN- During weekdays ending up to August 29, while 680.291 million tons (MT) of commodities worth over $666 million were traded at Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME), the trading volume and value experienced a growth of 169 percent and 81 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, 223.889 MT of various products worth near $281 million were traded.

On this trading floor, 219.577 MT of steel, 1.460 MT of copper, 2.720 MT of aluminum, 120 MT of molybdenum concentrates and 14 kg of gold bullion were traded by customers.

The report declares that on domestic and export oil and petrochemical trading floors of IME, 456.052 MT of different commodities with the total value of $397 million were traded.

On this trading floor, 209.9 MT of VB feed stock, 119.394 MT of bitumen, 43.319 MT of polymer products, 24.589 MT of chemical products, 280 MT of insulation, 50.500 MT of lube cut oil as well as 5.420 MT of sulfur were traded.

Furthermore, 350 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