Message from the President & CEO
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April 6, 2010
Tadashi Ezaki
President & CEO
Greeting
Commodity exchanges play a significant role in the Japanese economy by providing a venue for the formation of fair and highly transparent commodity prices; a tool for hedging price fluctuation risks, and an investment vehicle for asset management. Recently, there are greater expectations and increased trust in exchange traded transactions because of the high reliability of its clearing execution, enhancing once again the value of a commodity exchange as a public utility.
With this important social responsibility in mind, we have been proceeding with a number of reforms, such as the launch of a new trading platform, to fulfill such function. I am pleased to report that these efforts are starting to bear fruits. In this new fiscal year, we will continue to pursue our business objectives with an emphasis on the following three strategic areas: market design; marketing and listed commodities.
Firstly, in order to increase our market competitiveness, we plan to extend our trading hours for the night session from 23:00 to 4:00 (JST) in September 2010. We also intend to strongly support the Japan Commodity Clearing House (JCCH) in its planned adoption of SPAN as well as to work closely with foreign regulators to gain approval for providing direct market access (DMA) so as to attract potential market participants from abroad.
Secondly, we will work to encourage our various market participants (i.e: commercial players, financial institutions, institutional and retail investors, investment funds and prop firms abroad, etc.) to more actively participate in our markets. We will continue to work with asset management firms to further expand the number of TOCOM-linked investment funds and ETFs. Close communication with our Members and the commodity trading community will remain at the core of our marketing strategy.
Lastly, our agenda for expanding the listing lineup includes reopening the gas oil futures market, re-designing existing futures contracts to respond to the needs of market participants, preparations for the establishment of an emissions trading exchange as well as developing a linkage with the OTC market.
Thanks to the above-mentioned measures, we aim to put our trading volume back on track to a full-scale recovery, in order to establish ourselves as the primary derivatives exchange in Asia.
In closing, allow me to express my sincere appreciation to your continued support.
Tadashi Ezaki
President & CEO
Tokyo Commodity Exchange, Inc.
