At the “Eighth International Corn Industry Conference” held in Wuhan on September 17, an official of the agricultural products business division of Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) said that with the steady growth in market size in recent years, the agricultural products market at DCE has formed a relatively complete hedging chain for the products of the corn industry. Meanwhile, vigorously advancing the innovation in systems by implementing the “warehouse receipts switch” and other new systems and measures, DCE has joined hands with large business groups to provide more convenience in delivery for the medium, small and micro-sized enterprises, which generated significant effects in the market. In the future, by promoting innovation in more systems such as the “group delivery system”, DCE will adapt to the actual situation of the spot market and the demands of the enterprises, so as to improve the capacity of the futures market for serving the real economy.
At present there are 10 agricultural futures products listed on DCE, covering corn, oils and oilseeds, livestock and timber. In recent years, the agricultural products futures market in Dalian has seen the size expanded continuously, and in the first eight months in 2015 the agricultural futures recorded a total trading volume of 370 million contracts (unilateral, the same below), up by 26% year-on-year. Data show that in the first half of 2015, the corn futures posted a trading volume of 4.39 million contracts, an increase of 17% from a year earlier; with institutions' open interest accounted for 58% of the total, with the turnover rate at 20%, thus becoming the agricultural futures on DCE with the highest proportion of open interest held by corporate clients. Since the listing of the corn starch futures, the starch enterprises have been active in participating and the relevant enterprises are exploring the application of the corn starch futures in Basis pricing. The capacity of the egg futures for serving the industry has also been improved. As of the first half of 2015, the number of clients participating in the trading of egg futures reached 260,000, only next to those of soybean meal and palm olein; the highest number of the trading clients in a single day recorded 42,000; the open interest and the trading volume of institutional investors are 1.7 times and 7.3 times respectively of those in the early period of the listing, and many small and medium-sized farmers participate in the egg futures using individual investor accounts.