Perishable
commodities like fruits, vegetables, flowers and dairy
products would now have a nationwide electronic trading
platform. National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has
tied up with Financial Technologies Limited, promoters
of commodity exchange MCX, to promote a SAFAL National
Exchange of India Limited (SNX).
Based
at the Safal Market in Bangalore, SNX would be 51-per
cent owned by NDDB. Financial Technologies and MCX would
hold the balance. The size of investments has not been
disclosed.
SNX
would be a spot exchange and would not offer trading in
futures and other derivatives. The electronic trading
platform would provide a national market to producers
of such commodities.
NDDB
would provide its expertise in post-harvest handling of
perishable commodities, organising farmer associations
while Financial technologies and MCX will provide the
core technology along with the domain expertise and know-how
to setup the exchange.
SNX
will also provide on-line price dissemination and an efficient
warehouse-based delivery system, which will complement
the existing efforts in the supply chain management of
perishable commodities and reduce wastage. Being a neutral
integrated platform, the exchange will benefit not only
individual producers, but also farmer associations, co-operatives,
corporate houses and other stakeholders.
"SNX
is also a major initiative towards realising our vision
of integrating rural India with global markets, by unlocking
value and driving growth to the last mile of the value
chain. The experience of
SNX may well lead other industries to adopt similar technology-enabled
market infrastructure", Jignesh Shah, chairman and
managing director of Financial Technologies said.
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