(Yicai Global) Oct. 30 -- China's four biggest futures exchanges said they will change their statistical standards to a single-counted basis (long or short) from a double-counted basis (long plus short) to further bring them into sync with international standards.

The revised rules will come into effect on Jan. 1, per yesterday's statements by the Shanghai Futures Exchange, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange, the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange and the Dalian Commodity Exchange.

China's commodity futures markets generally calculate data from both the long and short side, while financial futures, such as stock index futures, only crunch data from one side. A hodgepodge of specifications is not conducive to comprehensive global statistical industrial analysis.

The securities regulator "has decided to standardize all statistics of the domestic futures industry to single-counted basis," an official at the Shanghai Futures Exchange said at a press conference, according to a statement posted on its website. "It will help China's futures market to converge with international practices and be more international and professional."

The changes mostly entail revisions of business rules and adjustments to technical system data fields, the Shanghai exchange said. Business rule adjustments mostly involve alterations of trading volumes and open positions. The technical changes comprise various systems, including those for trading, online quotes, website and member services, and key data fields such as volume, position, turnover and exercise of options.

After the statistical specifications shift to a single-counted basis, investors should keep an eye on the descriptions of these when they look up data on their websites, the exchanges advised, and should also note consistency of statistical specifications when using the data for purposes of comparison.

Editor: Ben Armour