India markets regulator aims to boost institutional participation in commodity markets, chair says

India’s markets regulator aims to boost institutional participation in the country’s agriculture and non-agriculture commodity markets to make them more attractive for hedging, Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said on Thursday.

“We are looking to enhance institutional participation to make this market more attractive for hedging,” Pandey said during a speech at the Bloomberg Forum for Investment Management.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has been looking to strengthen the country’s commodities markets and had said it will engage with the government on permitting banks, and pension funds to trade commodities.

“Deepening our cash equities market and improving the derivatives market is a high priority for us,” Pandey said during the event, according to a statement from SEBI.

The regulator had said in August it was also considering extending equity derivatives contract tenures and limiting who can trade.

It is looking to improve the quality of the derivatives market by extending the tenure and maturity of such contracts, whole-time member Ananth Narayan said in July.

The regulator is also exploring bond derivatives to make the corporate bond market more accessible, Pandey said.