Another commodity bourse on the cards
JAKARTA (JP): A group of traders plan to open a futures commodity exchange to trade rice, sugar, soybeans, tobacco, cotton and fiber.
Sally Rosalina, one of the group's members, said on Thursday that they had established a new company, PT Bursa Komoditi Jakarta Raya, to operate the commodity exchange.
She said PT Bursa Komoditi, the second commodity bourse scheduled for operation this year, was still waiting for a license from the Minister of Industry and Trade to carry out the trading activities.
"The international name of the commodity exchange will be the Jakarta Commodity Exchange or Jacom, and it plans to start operating in November," said Sally, also one of the sponsors for the opening of the new bourse exchange.
Sally said the new commodity exchange would have a paid up capital of Rp 10 billion to comply with Government Regulation No.9/1999 on future commodity exchange, which sets a minimum paid-up capital limit of Rp 10 billion for a future commodity exchange to operate.
She said the company would sell 200 units of shares to parties wishing to become shareholders or members of Jacom at a nominal price of Rp 50 million each.
Every member should pay an additional Rp 250 million if it wants to be involved in trading activities, she added.
The country's futures exchange operation is based on Government Regulation No. 9/1999, which sets the operational guidelines for the exchange as mandated by the 1997 law on futures exchange.
Under the regulation on future commodity exchanges, the bourse needs at least 11 members before it can be established.
Company director Joko Prianto said rice, soybean, sugar and tobacco were picked to be traded on Jacom because Indonesia is one of the main producers and consumers of those commodities.
The commodities have a great potential to be traded on the future commodity exchange because the government has liberalized their trade, he said.
"Sugar and soybean will be Jacom's prime commodities but we will also open our floor to rice, tobacco, cotton and textile fiber," he said.
He also said the commodities to be traded on Jacom would be totally different from the commodities to be traded on the government-sponsored Indonesia Future Exchange (IFEX), which is also scheduled for operation by the end of this year.
IFEX, which will have its trading floor at the Menara Kadin building in South Jakarta, is sponsored by PT Kliring and PT Jaminan Bursa Komoditi, the Association of Indonesian Coffee Exporters (AEKI) and the Federation of Indonesian Vegetable Oil and Fat Associations (FAMNI).
In the initial stages, IFEX will trade crude palm oil and coffee.
The opening of the futures exchange was initially scheduled for the beginning of 1998 but it was delayed several times.
Sources said the slow progress of IFEX's operation has led to the withdrawal of some of its shareholders including PT Satria Nugraha Sejati (SNS), which later sponsored the establishment of Jacom.(gis)