SHANGHAI, May 28: The Shanghai Futures Exchange and China’s futures regulator are considering the launch of steel futures, which to date have eluded efforts to identify a product standard enough to provide trading liquidity. “We have already completed studies for futures in rebar and in wire rod, and proposed them to the regulators,” exchange chairwoman Wang Lihua told reporters on Saturday on the sidelines of a conference on derivatives organized by the exchange.

“Rebar is an appropriate product for China because it accounts for a third of the market here. Of course, we’d like to launch them together, but we don’t know what the regulators will decide.” The London Metal Exchange said this month it would decide by the end of the year whether to launch the first globally-traded steel futures contract. Earlier attempts to do so have foundered over the difficulty of choosing among the many types of steel.

Steel and sugar futures are likely to be approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, before any futures options contract, said Yang Maijun, director general of the CSRC department of futures supervision, without confirming a timetable for either product.

Shanghai Futures Exchange officials had earlier indicated they would prioritize an options contract based on Shanghai’s copper futures. The exchange is also studying financial futures.

On Friday the exchange signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tokyo International Financial Futures Exchange to cooperate on the development of financial futures, said Shozo Ohto, senior managing director of the TFX.

The Shanghai exchange is also studying zinc futures, Wang said.

“China has become a net zinc importer. So even though zinc futures are a thorny topic, we think there is a need,” she said. Several years ago a Chinese zinc smelter suffered large losses on the LME, rendering China more cautious about state-owned companies’ hedging practices. —Reuters