As a very important part of the global economy, China has been playing a very positive role during the financial crisis and is making good progress of its futures market, said two financial experts from Chicago Board of Trade.

Jack Scoville is the Vice President of The Price Futures Group, Inc at Chicago Board of Trade, a highly specialized brokerage firm employing over 50 industry professionals and providing a broad array of derivatives products and services.

He said, "China has become a very important part of the world for sure. Many things they have done are very positive. China has become the major consumer of many raw materials around the world. I would really like to see that we will develop over the futures market when the consumer purchase power continues to increase in China. "

"China's current economy is largely based on export. However, eventually Chinese own people could become major source of economic growth not only for China, but also for industries around the world. " Scoville added.

He further pointed out, "I am sure Chinese government understands that and is working to develop more in that area. As Chinese living standard improves, Chinese consumers are getting used to buying more and more products, not just those made in China, but also those made all over the world, that will be an important driving force for the world economic growth."

Larry Song, a Beijing native who is currently working as a floor broker at Chicago Board of Trade, told Xinhua, "China is becoming increasingly important in the global economy. It plays a very important role during the global financial crisis. As for China itself, its export business has been affected tremendously. However, when the world economy starts recovery, it could go well again. China needs to do more on the financial area and consider buying more raw materials from the world market."

Talking about China's developing futures market, Scoville said, "the Chinese futures market has become something that we have been watching very much. China has become the major buyer of U.S. soybean at least last year. In many ways, it supported our soybean market. "

Scoville believes that China is making a lot of efforts to expand its futures market. He said, "I think they are moving to expand the futures market into other areas and other products. It is going to be an important thing for China as its economy develops. As the futures market grows in its importance, we will see more and more trade going over there and people like me will pay more and more attention."

Song said, "Right now we do pay a lot of attention to China's futures market, especially grain, soy bean and copper. China plays a very important role on the commodity side. China needs more stock index and some options, probably more products need to be launched which will be good for the market. People can hedge and that is the purpose of the option and index. "

Scoville also gave his expert advice to the Chinese future market. He said, "I think they have to realize more what they also produce. They have to consider products such as sugar, wheat and rice, especially considering rice is so important to China. "

To conclude, Scoville said overall China is doing a really pretty nice job of enhancing the reach of the futures market, and how the marketing is done. "As they continue to expand in their futures markets, Chinese consumers can only benefit." he said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2009)