BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) signed a strategic cooperation agreement with COSCO Shipping Logistics Co., Ltd. on Monday to conduct extensive cooperation in shipping futures development, delivery warehouse establishment and futures personnel training.
China is the world's largest container shipping country, possessing seven of the top ten container ports in the world. Its annual export volume of container cargo exceeds 40 million TEUs, giving it the scale advantage in spot commodity for ocean container shipping futures trading.
The annual fluctuation range of ocean container freight has increased from 58 percent to 138 percent since 2008, which brought operational risks to shipping companies and import and export enterprises. Entity companies need to hedge their risks by futures.
In addition, the ocean container shipping market is highly marketized and internationalized with sufficient market competition, which is suitable for futures trading, according to industry insiders. (Edited by Wu Shuang, wushuang2018@xinhua.org)