MUMBAI: India’s market regulator called a halt to futures trading in key farm commodities on Monday, as the world’s biggest importer of vegetable oils, and a key producer of wheat and rice, struggles to tame food inflation.
The year-long suspension, India’s most dramatic move since it allowed futures trade in 2003, threatens market confidence by making hedging difficult for traders, weeks after farmers ended a year of protests that led to scrapping of contentious reforms.
“It’s like shooting the messenger, but we have sympathy with the government, because they were worried over edible oil inflation,” Atul Chaturvedi, president of trade body the Solvent Extractors Association of India, told Reuters.
In its order, the market regulator told commodity exchanges not to launch futures contracts of soyabean, soyaoil, crude palm oil, wheat, paddy rice, chickpea, green gram, rapeseed and mustard for a year.
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