The turnover of 21 commodity bourses fell marginally to Rs 71.39 lakh crore during the April-August period of this fiscal on sluggish bullion volumes and tightening of norms to curb speculative trade, according to the commodity markets regulator FMC.
These exchanges had made a business of Rs 72.85 lakh crore in the same period last year, Forward Markets Commission (FMC) said on its website.
Barring bullion, the turnover from futures trading in agriculture commodities, metals and energy items was better than the year-ago period.
According to the FMC data, the turnover from bullion fell by 26 per cent to Rs 32.58 lakh crore till August of this fiscal from Rs 43.87 lakh crore in the same period last year.
“Fall in bullion volumes was mainly due to a decline in exposure of hedgers in the last 2-3 months following a sharp fall in gold imports, which has become costlier after an hike in import duty,” commodity brokerage firm SMC Comtrade Chairman and Managing Director D K Aggarwal said.
That apart, the physical demand for precious metal was negligible due to a steep rise in gold prices, he said.
Due to sluggish demand for the yellow metal amid high prices and higher import duties, overall gold imports this year is likely to be 700 tonnes against 969 tonnes in 2011.
However, FMC said the turnover from energy items like crude oil rose by 44 per cent to Rs 15.78 lakh crore from Rs 10.97 lakh crore and the business from metals like copper increased by 25 per cent to Rs 13 lakh crore from Rs 10.43 lakh crore in the year-ago period.
The turnover from agricultural commodities also increased by 32 per cent to Rs 9.96 lakh crore till August of the current fiscal from Rs 7.56 lakh crore.
Experts said there has been a fall in speculators’ volume in the commodities market because of pro-active measures announced by the regulator FMC to curb speculation in farm commodities in the last few months.
They also noted that retailers participation has also declined because of global economic slowdown. Retailers are concentrating more on debt and physical deposits instead of commodity markets.
At present, the country has five national and 16 regional level commodity exchanges in the country. Recently, the FMC gave an approval to the Universal Commodity Exchange to operate as a national bourse.