CEO of Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME) has announced that Indian and Indonesian customers are seeking to trade Iran’s bitumen in IME.
Hamed Soltaninejad said several actors are needed to set up a product-based financial market.
In response to a question whether Iran has received proposals for expansion of ties with other countries in the post-JCPOA era, the official said “some proposals for cooperation have been received from a number of foreign banks who were introduced to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in order to obtain necessary permits.”
“In order to launch derivative markets, we require foreign actors since some of the domestically produced items like bitumen only have customers in global markets,” he added.
Soltaninejad noted that foreigners, mainly from India and Indonesia, have expressed willingness to launch future markets of bitumen in IME; “furthermore, stock exchanges of European and East Asian countries have also called for bilateral cooperation with Iran.”
“Various measures are being taken at Iran Merchandise Exchange (IME) to develop bitumen trade market including the issuance of deposit product on the basis of the underlying bitumen asset as well as establishment of bitumen commodity funds,” he concluded.