The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) is to sell full membership seats for farmers cooperatives. Earlier this year, the exchange has announced that it will provide 30 full membership seats for farmer cooperatives to facilitate their direct involvement in the exchange.

The sell will double farmers cooperative's membership in the exchange. Currently, the majority of full membership seats are controlled by private companies.

Anteneh Assefa, CEO of ECX, recently stated that, previously, farmers could not able to compete for seats due to the high competition on membership bids. The current bid is expected to be relatively less expensive because only the cooperatives will be bidding for the available spots.

So far, the trading volume of farmer cooperatives which are members of the exchange does not exceeded 2.2 percent of total trading volume. The latest sale of membership seats will increase their membership share to around 12 percent.

ECX commenced operations in April 2008, with contracts traded in coffee, sesame, maize, wheat, and pea beans. The exchange is a market place where buyers and sellers come together to trade based on warehouse receipts, assured quality, delivery and payments.

Source: Capital