Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange Launched
The Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange (ZMX) has launched a commodities trading platform to offer transparency, efficiency and a fair pricing mechanism in the marketing of agricultural commodities.
The ZMX initiative is a partnership between the Government and the private sector-led by Financial and Securities Exchange Limited (FINSEC), TSL Limited and CBZ Holdings with FINSEC undertaking the technical implementation of setting up the exchange.
The commodities exchange will be based on an automated Warehouse Receipt System (WRS) and Spot Marketing Trading Platform.
Officially launching commodities trading platform, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mthuli Ncube said:
The commodity exchange ensures an efficient, fair market price discovery system that gives better access to local and international commodity buyers and better margins for farmers that short-circuit current challenges.
He said the WRS is key in addressing one of the challenges farmers face of poor storage facilities resulting in post-harvest losses.
Deputy Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Resettlement, Douglas Karoro said the commodity exchange will help smallholder farmers to be integrated into the mainstream economy.
He said the development is expected to mitigate challenges in the sector which includes lack of access to pre-planting and post-harvesting finance, post-harvest losses, poor agriculture marketing infrastructure, inappropriate warehousing facilities, underdeveloped logistics for the movement of agro-products from farm to markets and poor price discovery system.
Commodities to be traded on the exchange include the country’s strategic grains such as maize, wheat, sorghum, rapoko, soya beans, groundnuts, macadamia nuts, rice, oats, barley and coffee among others.
