Fruit Futures Launched

On the morning of December 22, 2017, the world’s first apple futures contracts started trading on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange in central China’s Henan Province.

China is already the world’s largest apple grower and consumer. Its apple output has been increasing over the past decade. In 2016, China had 2 million hectares of apple trees with an output of 43.88 million tonnes, accounting for 57 percent of global supply.

Apple growing is a feature of China’s poverty alleviation campaign, as many of China’s impoverished areas rely on apples as a major source of income. Among the 122 main apple-growing cities and counties listed by the Ministry of Agriculture, 33 are considered national-level impoverished counties.

At the moment apple prices are determined solely by the market, meaning that farmers and enterprises are at the mercy of market price fluctuations.

The launch of the futures is expected to make prices more transparent, and help growers hedge against market risks.