Iran Mercantile Exchange
The Iran Mercantile Exchange was launched in September 2007 as a well-established commodity market in the Middle East region and also the biggest commodity market in Iran, in accordance with Iran’s Fourth Development Plan, and following the mergers of the agricultural and metal exchanges of Tehran. The IME as a public joint-stock company is registered in the base market of Iran Fara Bourse. One of the IME goals is to become a price reference for commodities in petroleum, petrochemical, industrial and mineral asset classes.
The export trading floor of the IME is located in Kish Island and so far has provided unrestricted access for traders and international participants to trade a large number of commodities especially oil by-products and petrochemicals.
| Trading Floor | Local | Export |
| Venue | Tehran | Kish Island |
| Commodities | All listed commodities | Industrial Oil By-Products & Petrochemicals Agricultural |
| Markets | Spot, Derivatives, Peripheral |
Markets, Contracts and Products
Spot Market Resulting in Physical Delivery: Various products and commodities are listed and traded in the IME through semi-electronic open outcry, which are categorized in three classifications:
· Industrial: Metals such as steel, copper, aluminum, iron ore, zinc and lead, different types of cement, coke, and precious metals concentrate
· Oil by-products and petrochemicals: oil by-products ranging from bitumen, base oil, crude oil, fuel oil, RPO, carbon black, chemical products and petrochemicals like PP, PE, LDPE, LLDPE, aromatics, SBR, PS, MS, etc
· Agricultural: the agricultural products such as cereals, oilseeds, oilcakes and other grains and products like wheat, feed wheat, feed barley, yellow corn, maize, raisin, lentil, chick peas, sugar, meat, eggs, saffron, and pistachio
All commodities listed on the IME are eligible to be traded the following contract forms.
· Cash trades: It is defined as prompt cash payment against taking prompt delivery.
· Salam and Standard Salam (Forward): It is prompt payment against forward date delivery.
· Credit: It functions as deferred payment against prompt delivery.
Derivatives Market: gold coins, cumin seeds and most recently soybean meal are currently traded as futures in the derivative market. Other future products are to be introduced in the near future.
Peripheral Market: occasional and non-standardized products that are not eligible to be listed on commodity markets and commodities that are temporarily dismissed from listed commodities are traded on the peripheral market. A specific kind of iron, scrap metals and polymers were the most traded commodities on this market in 2014.