China's futures market continues expansion in scale, quality

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- China's futures market continued to grow, as it offered more futures contracts to investors, attracted more capital, and upgraded operation quality, industry insiders have said.

China launched 15 new futures and option contracts last year and introduced three products this year, bringing the total number of products currently traded on the market to 81, the Futures Daily has reported. The paper cited data shared at an industry meeting chaired by Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

The total capital of China's futures market had reached 677.15 billion yuan (about 95.42 billion U.S. dollars) by April 2020, up 22 percent from 556.15 billion yuan at the end of 2019, according to the meeting. It was attended by industry insiders from futures exchanges, industry associations and other domestic and overseas financial institutions.

In the first four months of this year, the total trading volume of China's futures market was 1.69 billion lots, with a turnover of 106.9 trillion yuan, recording a year-on-year increase of 53.2 percent and 34.8 percent respectively, showed the data.

Data also showed that the hedging efficiency of the futures market was 88.33 percent, up 3.6 percentage points year-on-year.

Experts at the meeting suggested relevant parties strengthen the publicity and guidance of the futures market, spread the knowledge of futures, strive for more social support and understanding, and create a more favorable environment for the development of the market.

Fang said the initial aim of developing the futures market is to "serve the real economy well" and to make important contributions to the establishment of a modern market system.

To achieve such goals, the CSRC and the futures exchanges will study and launch futures and options products that meet the needs of enterprises and develop more risk-management tools for the real economy. They will also study the feasibility of expanding the "insurance + futures" model from the agricultural field to the industrial field, so as to benefit more small and micro businesses, said Fang.

He also urged efforts to strengthen the research and promotion of the exchange of futures for physicals (EFP), and coordinate the entry of long-term funds into the market.