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TOCOM Today - Platts Dubai Crude

By TOCOM

 

Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM), the leading commodity derivatives exchange in Japan has been focusing in China in recent years.  China has come to the forefront in world commodity trading having very active domestic markets.  TOCOM has been aiming the day when Chinese investors are allowed to trade overseas markets.  Just to name a few of such efforts include building a relationship with local trade organizations and brokers, offering joint seminars with local brokers, etc., which activities have diversified in recent years.  The Exchange is also making a strong effort in setting up better infrastructure for information distribution.  Today, the market cannot be effectively operated without a good system to disseminate its information.  Having an effective and efficient way to distribute information is very important in China where more than 1.3 billion people spread over a vast expanse of land.  Together with another notable effort of building a relationship with a local ISV and establishing a necessary IT/technical structure, our series of such efforts has improved TOCOM’s recognition in China.   As the Asian market as a whole matures, we recognize the importance of bringing market participants from China to Tokyo, who are becoming a main player in the world commodity markets.  


The product of emphasis today is Crude Oil.  Its trading in Shanghai has been talked about for some time but finally it seems to start before the end of the year.   Crude Oil benchmarks today are WTI in the U.S., Brent in Europe.  And TOCOM has Dubai Crude that is seen as a benchmark for the Asian region.  Its volume has dramatically increased in the past two years.  That coupled with a fact that the underlying crude for TOCOM and Shanghai is almost identical, it is expected to create a good opportunity for arbitrage.  Expansion of Asia’s crude market via a synergistic effect of two exchanges is highly anticipated.  


The PhillipCapital Group of companies that has profound knowledge of China is a strong partner of TOCOM in Chinese marketing.