Plastic futures debuted yesterday at the Dalian Commodity Exchange in the coastal city in northeast China’s Liaoning Province.

The financial products will help boost development of China’s petrochemical industry, said Li Yongwu, head of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association.

Li said China depends heavily on imported petrochemical products. The start of trading in linear low-density polyethylene futures will allow for hedging against risks for downstream enterprises in the petrochemical industry and will give China influence in international plastic markets.

Shang Fulin, head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, rang the bell at the Dalian exchange to launch trading.

He said China’s futures industry was growing rapidly and that product innovation was accelerating.

The revised regulations on futures trading provide guarantees for the steady development of the market, Shang said.

The country launched its first futures exchange in Zhengzhou, capital of central China’s Henan Province, in October 1990.

Seventeen futures products are traded on the Chinese mainland, including cotton, sugar, wheat, soybean, maize, copper, aluminum, natural rubber and fuel oil. Chinese futures markets in four exchanges—two in Shanghai, one in

Zhengzhou and one in Dalian—recorded 14.5 trillion yuan (US$1.9 trillion) in firsthalf turnover, 43.5-percent growth from the same period last year, according to the China Futures Association.