Type Commodities exchange Date founded 2006 | Location Tehran, Iran Currency Iranian rial | |
 | ||
Owner IME is 30% owned by individuals and 70% by legal and financial entities. Commodities Industrial products, agricultural products, petrochemicals CEO Hamed Soltaninejad (2015–) | ||
Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME) is a commodities exchange located in Tehran, Iran. It was founded in 2006. IME trades in agricultural, industrial and petrochemical products in the spot and futures markets. It is mainly a domestic or regional market with the ambition to become more international in the future. As of 2014, about one fourth of IME's commodities were exported. IME offers a variety of services, including providing access to the initial offering of commodities, pricing for Iran’s Over-the-Counter (OTC), secondary markets and end users, providing a venue for government sales and procurement purchases, facilitating a trading platform and user interface, providing clearing & settlement services, risk management, technology services, and training of market participants.
Contents
History
Tehran Metal Exchange was established in September 2003 as the first mercantile exchange in the country. Later on, Iran Agricultural Exchange was established in September 2004. Subsequently, Tehran Metal Exchange merged with Iran Agricultural Exchange in December 2006 and formed the Iran Mercantile Exchange Company. In 2015, trading at IME has for the first time surpassed the volume of trade at the Tehran Stock Exchange.
Oil Bourse
The Government of Iran decided to establish the oil and petrochemicals exchange and the responsibility of creating this new exchange was delegated to IME Company. The first phase was launched on February 17, 2008 by executing the transactions of petrochemicals and chemicals which has been running successfully and the second phase is on the verge of launching. With the completion of the second phase, crude and by-products of oil can also be traded on the exchange in both Iranian Rial and major foreign currencies (except USD).
Kish Island is the venue for trading the oil contracts. It is a free trade zone. The Islamic Republic also wants to encourage local investors to participate in the oil market as it tries to reduce the state’s role in the country’s energy industry.
Industrial
Petroleum by-products
Iran holds the world's second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, and the second-largest gas reserves after Russia.
Petrochemicals
Agricultural
New products
In 2016, IME introduced currency futures (Iranian rial/US dollar) and gold futures and options (as hedging tools).
Supervision and regulation
The Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO) is the sole regulatory entity for the regulation and development of the capital market in Iran. In 2013 Iran Mercantile Exchange joined the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges (FEAS) as a full member. It is also a member of Association of Futures Markets (AFM).
Tradable contracts
Trading system
Trading in IME is based on open outcry auction using electronic trading platform, an interaction of bids and offers made by the buying and selling brokers. Orders, already placed by the clients, are entered in the system by the brokers sitting behind their stations in the trading floor. The system processes the orders and executes the transaction upon matching of the bid and offer prices.
IME Statistics
1 Due to the reclassification of "cement" under "manufacturing and mining products", figures for 2010/11 have been revised. Previously, "cement" was classified under "oil and petrochemical products".