TEHRAN- During weekdays ending up to October 31, while 440,084 tons of commodities worth over $404 million were traded at Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME), the trading volume and value experienced a growth of 58 percent and 18 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, 57,135 tons of various products worth close to $95 million were traded.

On this trading floor, 52,708 tons of steel, 2,295 tons of copper, 2,000 tons of aluminum, 120 tons of molybdenum concentrates, 12 tons of precious metal concentrates as well as 22 kg of gold bullion were traded by customers.

The report declares that on domestic and export oil and petrochemical trading floors of IME, 382,715 tons of different commodities with the total value of $327 million were traded.

On this trading floor, 86,632 tons of bitumen, 206,300 tons of VB feed stock, 50,555 tons of polymer products, 13,500 tons of lube cut oil, 20,402 tons of chemical products, 666 tons of insulation, 3,013 tons of argon as well as 4,625 tons of sulfur were traded.

Furthermore, 324 tons 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. 

And in mid-October, IME launched “futures contract” for the pistachio deals.

Futures contracts (more colloquially, futures) are financial contracts obligating the buyer to purchase an asset or the seller to sell an asset at a predetermined future date and price.

Addressing the ceremony to launch this financial instrument, Soltani-Nejad said, “There is no futures contract for pistachio deals in any mercantile exchange in the world and it is the first time that such contract is launched in a mercantile exchange.”

MA/MA