China launched the trading of aluminum and zinc options at the Shanghai Futures Exchange on Monday to improve the country’s commodities and derivatives market system.
On the first trading day, call and put options contracts of the two commodities were listed with underlying aluminum futures contracts to be delivered from October 2020 to January 2021, and zinc futures contracts to be delivered in October and November 2020.
The total trading volume for the contracts of the two options was 10.7 million yuan (US$1.53 million) on Monday, reflecting active transactions.
China is the world’s largest production and trading market for non-ferrous metals. Related futures and options products have been used on a large scale to hedge risks. Among them, aluminum futures contracts have been listed for 28 years, comprehensively serving as a tool of risk management for the production, sale and trading of aluminum.
China has launched 18 commodity options over the past three years to become the world’s largest market for commodity derivatives.
Fang Xinghai, vice-chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said earlier that China will launch more commodity futures and gradually launch underlying options with all futures contracts in accordance with the development of the real economy.
Meanwhile, China has further opened up its commodities market, having launched five commodity futures that are open to investors from home and abroad, including crude oil futures, natural rubber futures and low-sulfur fuel futures.
Guizhou’s exports
Southwest China’s Guizhou province reported robust export growth in the first seven months of this year despite the Covid-19 epidemic.
Guizhou’s exports hit 20.94 billion yuan between January and July, up by 24.5% year-on-year, the second-highest growth among provincial-level regions nationwide. Imports fell by 37.5% year-on-year to 4.35 billion yuan.
Exports fared better than expected as the province has taken a slew of measures to help export-oriented enterprises and foreign-funded businesses resume production in an orderly manner to counter the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, said Ji Hong, director of the provincial commerce department.
Local authorities have rolled out more than 30 support polices, including measures to help tackle the enterprises’ financing bottlenecks, support with customs guarantee insurance, and reduce logistics costs, Ji said.
Hunan’s foreign trade
China’s Hunan Province saw its foreign trade rise 11.1% year-on-year to more than 251 billion yuan between January and July this year, local authorities said Monday.
Exports rose 3.8% year-on-year to 164.5 billion yuan while imports gained 28.5% to 86.55 billion yuan during the period, according to the customs in Changsha, the provincial capital.
ASEAN became Hunan’s largest trade partner during the period, with imports and exports totaling 42.18 billion yuan, up 36.4% year-on-year.
The exports by Hunan are dominated by mechanical and electrical products as well as labor-intensive products. The province reported an increase in iron ore and grain imports in the first seven months.
Company news
Huawei takes the crown as China’s most valuable brand with a brand value of US$117.05 billion, according to a report released by Brand Alliance.
Tencent came in second place ($107.28 billion), followed by Alibaba ($96.59 billion), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China ($84.58 billion) and China Mobile ($6.2 billion).
The total value of the top 20 brands reached US$880 billion. Pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, electronics, internet, food and beverages represented the majority industries among the top 500 brands in the ranking.
A total of 55 brands came from the pharmaceutical and medical equipment sector. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, market demands and brand awareness for masks, respirators, nucleic acid tests and vaccines have improved, driving up the brand value of the whole industry.
The stories were written by Yang Zhijie and Liu Licong and first published at ATimesCN.com. They were translated by Nadeem Xu.