Shanghai municipal government issued a plan to accelerate construction of an
international trade center, directing expansion of bulk commodity trading. The
plan calls for enlarging copper and aluminum trading scale and fast-tracking
futures series for lithium, cobalt and nickel. It seeks to strengthen service
infrastructure for new-energy commodities and supports building a hydrogen-based
green energy trading platform in the Lingang New Area. The plan targets greater
internationalization of commodities: backing steel and other traditional
contracts to enter overseas markets and consolidating Shanghai copper, Shanghai
oil and Shanghai rubber as pricing benchmarks. It also calls for opening more
futures and options contracts directly to foreign traders and accelerating
launch of RMB-denominated international products.
