News: ‘India becoming trendsetter in commodities’

(PTI 15/05/2006) Mumbai - India could become a price setter in commodities future trading as it is already creating its impact in influencing world prices of gold and oil seeds and in two years it can become price setter for crude oil, said a commodity expert.

"India is already influencing, possibly the price of oil seeds and gold. It is not yet formally declared a price setter as it takes time for the market to realize these chages," Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd (MCX) joint managing director Lamon Rutten said.

Since India is in a proper time zone and there is no crude oil contract in the Middle East, India could be price setter for this product, he said.

Rutten who has recently joined MCX has been serving as chief of finance, Risk Management and Information in the commodities division of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Geneva.

Commenting on his thrust areas at MCX, Rutten said apart from spreading the benefits of the market to the countryside he will see that the exchange becomes more international through further alliances and bringing in more foreign users to trade here.

On the risk managemment, Rutten added that apart from the exchanges there is the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) but the growth of the exchanges has been fast so lot of burden of preventing manipulative attempts will be on the exchanges.

He, however, said that, there is a need on the part of the government to strengthen FMC by enhancing the resources to make it fully efficient modern regulator.