The Hindu Business Line : NCDEX to launch castorseed futures today

The futures contracts are - castorseed (July 23), guar gum and raw jute (July 26), sugar and turmeric (July 27), urad and yellow peas (July 28) and soyameal (during the first week of August).

With the addition of these contracts, the total number of products offered by NCDEX would rise to 24, including two in bullion.

"We have been heartened by the response of our members for the exchange's agricultural contracts so far, which has prompted us to widen the menu to cover a much larger canvas in the agricultural spectrum," said Mr Narendra Gupta, Chief Business Officer, NCDEX, said: "The exchange has drawn contracts for these products after extensive discussions with all participants in the value chain of these commodities and we are confident that volumes on the exchange would rise exponentially in these areas also as we are giving our members what the market wants."

NCDEX started operations on December 15, 2003. It has over 310 members spread across 140 locations. Of late, the exchange has been witnessing surging volumes (one-way measurement) touching a peak of Rs 425 crore on July 20, 2004.

The exchange has also been witnessing the largest number of trades and orders amongst all commodity exchanges in the country.

Trading in agro-commodities account for about 65 per cent of its volumes and the balance, 35 per cent is accounted for by the two bullion products.