Soya beans now trading on Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange

SOYA bean registered its first trade at the Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange (ZMX) yesterday with 167,38 volumes traded at US$480 per ton.

The ZMX initiative is a partnership between the Government and the private sector led by the Financial and Securities Exchange Limited (FINSEC), TSL Limited, and CBZ Holdings.

One of the key objectives of the ZMX is to provide an open market for commodities, with willing buyers and willing sellers providing price discovery mechanisms.

This week the commodity exchange expanded tradable commodities from maize only to include soya beans, sugar beans, sunflower, white sorghum, red sorghum, and wheat.

ZMX said marketing and trading of soya beans, wheat, and barley have been liberalised following the gazetting of Statutory Instruments 129 and 130 by the Government of Zimbabwe on 21 July 2023.

According to ZMX weekly update, maize volumes for this week retreated to 185,14 tons from last week’s 327 tons and the price increased marginally to US$315 per ton from last week’s US$310 per ton.

ZMX deals with small-scale, medium-scale, and large-scale farmers, and agro-processors.

The auction is in accordance with the ZMX Trading Rules gazetted in Statutory Instrument (SI) 184 of 2021 and started with maize and eventually will include all other commodities listed on the exchange.

Farmers are also supposed to be registered with Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) to be able to participate in the commodity exchange.-chronicle