Move over futures in agri commodities; India's commodity exchanges are now getting bullish on futures trading in bullion, metals and energy products.

Declining volumes in agriculture commodities are prompting the commodity bourses to aggressively focus on futures trading in bullion, metals and energy products.

Officials at India's largest agri commodity bourse�the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Ltd -- said the exchange plans to concentrate more on bullion and metal futures.

One reason why NCDEX is shifting its focus is declining future trading turnover in agri commodities.

The NCDEX May turnover came down to Rs 75,662.11 crore (Rs 756.62 billion) compared to the April turnover of Rs 93,361.42 crore (Rs 933.61 billion).

NCDEX Managing Director P H Ravikumar told reporters that frequent changes in margins, ban on trading in some commodities, stock limit by state governments, delay in permitting options trade in commodities and many other regulations have made futures trading trading in agricultural commodities tough.

"If the trend continues, NCDEX will move to other commodities," he said.

However, Ravikumar said the exchange plans to migrate farmers to new cropping patterns based on futures prices on the exchange platforms.

"We also want to bring the warehousing infrastructure and grading standards in the country to global best practices and to encourage investors and corporates to use the exchange platforms for investments," he pointed out.

In the last two years, India's largest commodity bourse -- the Multi Commodity Exchange -- has also been bullish on gold futures, although there have been negative returns on gold in the country with the rupee appreciating against the US dollar.

According to MCX officials, gold prices in the Indian market have come down almost 2% in rupee terms despite 7% and 4% increase in dollar and euro terms respectively.

Said MCX vice-president Sameer Patil: "While gold worth Rs 3000 crore (Rs 30 billion) is traded through the MCX platform on an average everyday, silver traded everyday is worth of Rs 2500 crore (Rs 25 billion)."

Bullion trading is contributing 45 to 50 per cent of MCX's average daily turnover of Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) currently, followed by trading in base metals contributing 40% and energy 10 to 15 per cent.

The turnover in agri-commodities in MCX declined of over 15 percent to Rs 7156.04 crore (Rs 71.56 billion) in May from Rs 8541.85 crore (Rs 85.41 billion) in April.