China's commodity futures market has zoomed 88 per cent in volumes in May as against a modest growth of less than 10 per cent in India;s commodity markets since April 1-May 15, 2008 on a year-on-year basis.

China trading volumes rose due to active trading of farm products, including sugar, soybean, corn, zinc.

Trading volume hit 5 trillion yuan ($714 billion), representing an increase of 88 per cent over the same period last year, according to figures released here by the China Futures Association.

Compare this with India's trading volume in commodity futures from April 1 to May 15, 2008 which was Rs 5,06,629.28 cr (or $120 bn) up from Rs 4,59,929.46 crore (Rs 4,599.29 billion) during the corresponding period in 2007.

Leading analysts said that the steep increase is Chinese trading volumes due to an improving domestic market environment, as well as fluctuating domestic farm product prices caused by surging grain prices in the world market and the snow disaster in the country earlier this year.

At Shanghai Futures Exchange, the traded volume was 2 trillion yuan. Here the major contracts are in gold, copper and zinc.  

Zhengzhou Commodity Exchanges saw a trade volume of 1.15 trillion yuan in May, an increase of 376 per cent over the same period last year.

Dalian Commodity Exchange trade volume totaled 1.88 trillion yuan in May, up 280 per cent year on year or down 24 per cent over April.

In terms of market share, trade volume of SHEF, ZCE and DCE accounted for 18 per cent, 36 per cent and 46 per cent of China's total commodity futures trade in May, respectively.