Commodities exchange targets N4.3 b revenue in first year

ALL IS NOW SET FOR THE Nigeria Commodity Exchange (NCX) to commence trading in agricultural commodities by next month, February 2019. The exchange is targeting N4.3 billion revenuw in its first year of operation.

The agro-commodities in focus include: Maize, Sorghum, Soya beans, Sesame seed, Cashew, and many other home-grown grains.

Zaheera Baba-Ari, NCX managing director while disclosing this in Abuja, said the exchange is through with the first phase of the development of its trading system which takes care of most of the activities. “We still have about three or four phases but the first phase is ready and we can trade with that,” she said.

Also, she said they have completed the renovation of five warehouses and are currently in the process of renovating three more warehouses to accommodate more commodities. Recall that in 2018, the NCX signed a memorandum of understanding MOU with New Nigeria Commodity Marketing Company (NNCMC) to enable both parties link sellers with buyers of agro-commodities within the country and globally.

“As from February, we will start receiving commodities into these warehouses. The NNCMC will aggregate those commodities from the farmers and bring them into our warehouses and we will trade those commodities on the floor of the exchange, Baba-Ari said.

According to her, the NCX has estimated revenues of N4.3 billion this year, being the first year of its operation.

‘The projected production figure for maize for 2019 is like 12.8 million metric tons, if you take sorghum is about 9.8 million metric tons, if you take something like soya beans it will take about 750,000 metric tons, sesame is about 180,000 metric tons and from those volumes, we are assuming that, that about 70 per cent of that would be eaten by the people and so there will be 30 per cent left and then we will now take 15 per cent, and let’s assume that 15 per cent of that is going to be traded on the exchange.

The trading value for all that, for 15 per cent of these commodities I have told you about would be about N143 billion and the revenue that would accrue to the exchange in 2019 alone based on that just 15 per cent of all these volumes I have spoken about will come to N4.3 billion, so that’s just in the year as we are just starting in 2019.

Thereafter we know things will increase,” Baba-Ari said.