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Ardent Listener
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 Posted - 06/08/2007 : 19:46:32
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COPPER: faces gold on India bourse
NEW DELHI: India’s leading commodity exchange, where gold bullion has always dominated trading, is seeing the spotlight shifting to copper as demand for base metals picks up in the fast-growing economy.
The volume of copper being traded has more than doubled to 7,000 to 8,000 tonnes a day over the past one year with volatile metal prices prompting more users to hedge, Anjani Sinha, director of Multi Commodity Exchange of India, said. “The trading in copper futures is now almost at the same level as gold,” Sinha told Reuters in an interview. World copper prices have more than doubled to about $7,500 per tonne from $3,000 in end-2005, he said.
This has lifted copper futures trading on the Indian exchange to about 20-25 billion rupees ($488-$610 million), just behind gold futures with 25-30 billion rupees.
It is only a matter of time before copper overtakes gold as the most traded as more cable and electric wire makers, who contribute about 60 percent of the trading volume now, step in to buy copper futures contracts to hedge against price volatility. “It may happen. There is a lot of industrial application and many users are there. And compared to gold, copper is more volatile,” Sinha said.
Big boys: The potential for the copper futures market in India is huge, with an economy growing at more than 9 percent annually expected to boost usage of the base metal in telecom lines, power cables, house wiring and industrial equipment. India’s top copper refiners including Sterlite Industries India Ltd and Hindalco Industries Ltd conduct all their hedging at the London Metal Exchange. reuters
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Copper: faces gold on India bourse
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