The members--Lammon Rutten (UNCTAD) and Deepak Ahluwalia (World Bank, New Delhi office)--will acquaint themselves with the working of the domestic commodity exchanges, during their span of visit in the country.

Both Rutten and Ahluwalia recently met members of some eight leading comexes in the country on the need to improve the overall working of their respective exchanges. This includes setting up of warehouses for smoother trading as is the practice in international comexes. The meeting was held at the Mumbai office of Forward Markets Commission (FMC) on Wednesday.

On last Tuesday, the team visited the exchange premises of the East India Cotton Association (EICA), Sewree, (central Mumbai), which kicked off the cotton futures on December last.

This visit is understood to precede the disbursement of around $5,00,000 grant to the government for the overall improvement of FMC and other comexes in the country. The World Bank had approved disbursal of the grant in November 1998.

Meanwhile, Bombay Oilseeds and Oils Exchange (BOOE), has organised a seminar titled `Castor Meet 1999' at Ahmedabad on February 28, jointly with Ahmedabad Commodity Exchange (ACE, formerly known as The Ahmedabad Seed Merchants' Association) and Rajkot Seed Oil and Bullion Merchants' Association. The seminar would be inaugurated by the state's finance minister and chaired by NK Industries chairman and managing director Nimesh K Patel.

The purpose of the seminar, according to BOOE, is to assess the castorseed crop situation for 1998-99 season, discuss the sales tax problems, and boost exports of this commodity.

However, one of the most important reason of the seminar is to appraise the traders in and around the Gujarat region about the launch of international castor oil futures. The government and FMC has permitted BOOE to trade in international futures of castor oil and expects the latter's nod by sometime next month.