(Yicai) Aug. 25 -- The 2025 China (Zhengzhou) International Futures Forum was grandly held in Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province, on Aug. 19 and 20. Wang Ying, deputy director of the futures supervision department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Wu Jianwu, deputy director in charge of daily works at the financial committee office under the Henan provincial committee of the CPC, Zhuang Jianqiu, mayor of Zhengzhou and deputy secretary of Zhengzhou municipal committee of the Communist Party of China, and Xiong Jun, chairman of the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange, attended the main forum on Aug. 20 and delivered speeches.

To support the stable operation of the real economy and better cope with external risks and challenges, a variety of efforts in the futures market are under an orderly advancement. As these efforts have presented remarkable results, the quality of the market’s development has reached a new level. The first result is the continuous enhancement of the futures market’s service capability. The tool system was increasingly enriched. Thus far, 131 types of commodity futures and options have been marketable in China, offering services to and affecting a wider range of fields in the national economy. Moreover, the participation rate of industrial customers is on a continuous rise. Last year, the daily average transaction volume of industrial customers in all markets grew 12.2 percent year-on-year, and the number of listed companies taking part in hedging stayed on the upward trend for the 11th consecutive year. The second result is that the influence on futures prices is constantly strengthening. Multiple methods, such as hedging, arbitrage, and options-included trading, have been widely adopted, and prices of futures have been deeply embedded in various aspects of the operation and management of companies related to spot goods. At the same time, paths of the futures market’s opening-up have been constantly enriched as the authorization of futures’ settlement prices of varieties such as soybean oil and rubber has successively gone global, and the number of varieties of domestic futures and options where qualified foreign institutional investors are involved has expanded to 91. The third result is that the futures market has gradually been integrated into the nation’s overall development. The futures market has continuously supported rural revitalization. The program known as ‘worry-free commercial reserves,’ which was designed by the ZCE targeting chemical fertilizer providers, has supported and guaranteed food [grain] security. Insurances and futures have also facilitated the stability and growth of farmers’ income and innovated and explored multiple farmer-helping models where the synergy and integration of ‘insurances plus futures’ and other business formats are shown. Moreover, futures have been deeply involved in the high-quality development of the services and manufacturing sectors. Eighty-four among the marketable commodity futures and options are industrial products, accounting for 64 percent of the total. This offers solid guarantees for the stable operation and enhancement of the security of the industrial and supply chains of relevant market entities in the manufacturing sector in a market environment where uncertain factors have prominently increased.   

According to Wang Ying, in the next step, the CSRC is to continuously focus on respecting compliance, with requirements of strengthening regulation, preventing risks, and promoting high-quality development as follows. The first requirement is constantly enriching product supply, which is boosting the marketability of significant energy-type futures, such as liquefied natural gas, further improving the system of commodity indexes, and constantly expanding the coverage of futures and corresponding derivative tools. The second is firmly promoting the high-level opening-up in the futures market, which means stably increasing the specific types and expanding the scope of varieties of domestic futures and options, whose trading is accessible to qualified foreign institutional investors, and improving the facilitation of overseas clients’ participation in the Chinese futures market. The third is the constant deepening of market services, which is guiding leading companies in better directly utilizing the futures market to stabilize production and operation, supporting medium- and small-sized firms’ implementation of risk management through futures risk management subsidiaries and industrial service providers, to continuously improve the institutional environment for firms’ hedging. The fourth is enhancing the professional competence of institutions within the sector, which means strengthening innovation on businesses and products, building a more diverse and adaptable system for risk management tools, and providing personalized and refined services for industrial enterprises in varied stages, of different types, and in varied sectors, based on actual facts of brick-and-mortar companies’ risk management. And the fifth is enhancing research-driven development, which means, taking the establishment of the China Capital Market Society as an opportunity, further enhancing the futures market’s research capability by comprehensively gathering research synergy from various parties and implementing in-depth researches based on the needs of national strategies, the real economy, and forefront fields for the futures market’s innovation and development to offer more research-related drivers to boost the futures market’s high-quality growth.

Wu Jianwu said that the Henan provincial committee of the CPC and the Henan provincial government highly value the building of the futures market and have issued a series of policies and measures to continuously boost the high-quality development of the futures market. They have also greatly supported the ZCE’s innovative development, rebuilding and reshaping its advantages, accelerated the gathering of financial and industrial resources, emphasized the cultivation of futures operating institutions and proactive guidance targeting brick-and-mortar companies to deepen connectivity between futures and spot goods, attracting and training high-quality futures talents to facilitate the building of the ZCE into a first-class futures exchange. The China (Zhengzhou) International Futures Forum has been successfully held multiple times and has become an important platform for global futures industry insiders to exchange their wisdom and thoughts. Experts and industry elites focused on heated topics, difficulties, and issues of economic development and the futures sector, deeply exchanging ideas, gathering consensus of opinions, and offering new thoughts and plans for facilitating the innovative development of the futures market. 

Zhuang Jianqiu said in his speech that, with the strong momentum, ZCE prices are serving the stability of global industrial and supply chains, and Zhengzhou is gradually becoming a significant hub that links domestic and overseas commodities markets. Zhengzhou will consistently stick to the goals of building itself into a financially strong city and a regional modernized financial center, sparing no effort in constructing and improving the system of modernized financial services that adapt to the new stages of development, so as to offer strong financial services guarantees to the modernization of the country’s central cities. In the future, Zhengzhou will continuously enhance its partnership with the ZCE and support the ZCE in making more varieties of futures and options marketable to further speed up its internationalization, strengthen the international influences of ZCE prices, and enable the Zhengzhou platform to better serve the global allocations of resources. 

According to Xiong Jun, in the era of comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through the Chinese path to modernization, the ZCE will firmly uphold its regulatory responsibilities, continuously optimize the market supply, better leverage functions of the futures market, and proactively serve the Chinese path to modernization and to becoming a financial powerhouse. First, continuously enriching the supply of a variety of tools and consolidating the foundations of services. This means that the ZCE will focus on the needs of national strategies and real economic development to stably advance the research, development, and registration of sunflower oil futures to orderly promote the R&D of futures varieties, such as steel billet, cement, and chicken, and explore and promote more short-term options. It will also expand both into the upstream and downstream segments of already advantageous industries, with a variety of endowments in fields, such as energies, chemicals, and salt-related chemicals, to constantly enrich types of derivative tools. Moreover, it will deepen research on the varieties of reserves to continuously boost the R&D of derivatives that comply with the needs of the real economy. Second, enhancing the quality and effectiveness of market operations and services and deepening the industry empowerment. This means that the ZCE will stick to the individualized management strategy of ‘One Category, One Strategy’ to optimize futures varieties that have already been marketable, as well as corresponding business rules, and will stick to differentiated policies and assessment plans as per varied companies to be engaged in market cultivation. It will also guide risk management companies and commodity exchanges targeting firms to expand futures application scenarios, widen the service scope of ‘options plus,’ and continuously improve industrial customers’ participation rate. Moreover, it will orderly advance the implementation of programs known as ‘insurances plus futures’ and ‘worry-free sugar industry’ and optimize and improve the business model of the ‘worry-free commercial reserves’ program. Third, stably expanding the high-quality opening-up and speeding up the building of itself into a world-class exchange. The ZCE will formulate and implement the strategic planning for the 15th Five-Year Plan to better serve the high-quality development of the real economy with pragmatic measures. It will continuously deepen the R&D of internationalized futures types, implement the bonded delivery of purified terephthalic acid, and timely expand the range of tradable varieties for qualified foreign institutional investors to realize the overall opening-up of the market segment of polyester futures. It will also expand the room for cross-border partnerships, steadily boost cooperation on settlement prices’ authorization with overseas futures exchanges, and enhance international exchanges to continuously strengthen the global pricing influence of the Zhengzhou futures market. 

Yu Bin, former deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, discussed the situation and prospects of China’s high-quality economic development during his keynote speech. Yang Guang, party secretary and chairman of the China Futures Association, shares his opinion on the development of the futures and derivatives sectors and how to build a strong country. And Russell Beattie, managing director and head of Asia of CME Group, shared the trends and prospects of global derivatives market reforms. 

Themed ‘Empowering the Real Economy and Contributing to Building a Strong Country: Practices and Opportunities for the High-Quality Development of the Futures Market,’ this year’s China (Zhengzhou) International Futures Forum was jointly hosted by the ZCE and CME. Besides the main forum, four sub-forums on the opening-up, industrial enterprises’ risk management, agricultural products (oils and fats), and industrial products (polyesters) were also held.