The trading of stock index futures will be launched at the Shanghai-based China Financial Futures Exchange in early 2007, the country's top regulator Shang Fulin said in Beijing Tuesday.

 

"With the listing of some major state-owned commercial banks and big enterprises, there is a much stronger connection between the stock index and the national economy. The opportunity to trade stock futures has arrived," the chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said at a seminar on financial derivatives.

 

The capital market has been keen to develop financial futures for years. It is also a must for further development of the capital, monetary and insurance market, Shang said.

 

China Financial Futures Exchange, the country's first financial derivatives exchange, was inaugurated on September 8.

 

Zhu Yuchen, the exchange's general manager, said trading stock futures will provide investors with a new risk hedging tool.

 

"Currently investors can only profit when the index is going up. With the introduction of index futures, investors now can also make money when the index falls," he said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2006)