The China Securities Regulatory Commission, China’s regulatory authority on futures market, approved of Zinc futures contracts being listed on SHFE. The trading will start on Mar. 26, 2007.

It is the first product listing on China’s commodity futures market this year, following sugar, soybean oil, PTA futures contracts launched in 2006. So far the four futures exchanges in Mainland China have 13 futures products listed for trading.

Zinc is one of significant non-ferrous metals. It comes next to aluminum and copper in production and consumption volume and is widely used for sectors like metallurgy, construction, machines, chemical, automobile. China boasts of the richest deposit of zinc in the world. In recent years, China’s zinc industry has experienced a fast growth and for the past 15 years consecutively its output and apparent consumption of refined zinc have topped the other economies globally. Since China became a net importer of Zinc in 2004, it has remained one of the major zinc importing economies.