Hasan appointed boss of new futures exchange

JAKARTA (JP): Former Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) boss Hasan Zein Mahmud was elected on Thursday as president of the newly established Indonesia Futures Exchange (IFEX).

The exchange's commissioner Hanafi Sofyan said Hasan was elected by the exchange's 29 founding members, who at the same time also appointed two professionals from crude palm oil producing companies -- J.W. Sudomo and Don Rico Menayang -- as directors.

The exchange's board of directors will be supervised by the board of commissioners. Former director general of foreign trade at the Department of Industry and Trade Paian Nainggolan was appointed president commissioner. The other new commissioners are Asep Tjandrawidjaja from the Federation of Indonesian Vegetable Oil and Fat Associations, Oesman Soedargo from the Association of Indonesian Coffee Exporters, Agus Projosasmito from PT Danareksa and Hanafi of PT Indofutop.

Hanafi said the exchange, the first futures commodity bourse in the country, would start operation early next year.

"IFEX will start operating between January and February next year after the exchange completes all the preparation work, mostly on its trading system," Hanafi said.

He said the exchange needed about two months to select the right software company to support the trading system, and another three months to set up the system.

Newly elected IFEX president Hasan refused to make any comments about his appointment.

"I need time to learn about everything before giving you any comment regarding IFEX. I'm sorry but you will have to wait," he said.

IFEX was established with authorized capital of Rp 40 billion and paid-up capital of Rp 11.6 billion.

Hanafi said the new futures exchange would in the initial stages trade crude palm oil and coffee.

The operation of the country's first futures exchange was initially scheduled to start at the beginning of 1998, but it was delayed several times.

Another group of commodities traders have also announced a plan to plan to open a separate futures commodity exchange later this year to trade rice, sugar, soybeans, tobacco and cotton.

This second commodity bourse, to be named the Jakarta Commodity Exchange, or Jacom, is waiting for a license from the government. (udi)