"The exchange has received tremendous response to its newly-launched cotton seed futures contract and now it is proposing to launch gold futures contract from January 16," said Suresh Devnani, Vice-President of NCDEX, here.

"The co-relation between India and international gold prices has been affected due to recent government policies of heavy import duty and financing restrictions which has caused changes in gold ecosystem and gold futures prices," he said.

"Keeping this in mind the exchange is launching a futures contract to provide an option of investment-hedging to its participants."

The exchange has started settlement of the futures contract through COMTRAC, a special platform. "The exchange has developed the programme to offer better services to its value chain participants,Devnani said.

NCDEX has received tremendous investor response to its cotton seeds futures contract launched on January 2, he said."The exchange has witnessed a volume of 16,160 MT with total turnover of Rs 31 crore in a week after the launch of cotton seed contract," Devnani added.

PTI