KARACHI, Dec 12: Pakistan's first commodities futures exchange will start operations on February 2, with trading initially limited to gold, a spokeswoman for National Commodity Exchange Limited (NCEL) said on Tuesday.

The exchange will operate for two hours daily from February 2, but it will operate for 12 hours a day, Monday to Friday, from March 1, the spokeswoman said.

Pakistan does not have any commodities futures markets but has spot trading markets for cotton and gold.

The exchange will start with trading in gold, before adding rice, sugar, wheat, crude palm oil and cotton yarn later in 2007.

—Reuters