On 13 December 2019, Qianhai Mercantile Exchange (QME) and Ccement.com successfully hosted “The First Construction Materials Commodities Spot Trading Convention 2019” in Shenzhen.  Charles Li, Chief Executive of HKEX and Chairman of QME, gave an opening speech.  Qiao Longde, President of China Construction Materials Federation and various officials of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce and the State Information Center also attended the conference and gave speeches.  Nearly 200 representatives from industry associations, cement companies, concrete companies, trade dealers, logistics companies, funds, and securities institutions were also present.

At the conference, QME reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Ccement.com and proposed to start a spot cement project in the future utilising modern warehousing technology and other new technologies to provide innovative products and services for the purpose of effectively filling the gap in the market.  QME and Ccement.com hope that through this cooperation, they can explore the three future development trends of financialisation, marketisation, and internationalisation of the cement industry and give an impetus to the innovation and development of this industry in Mainland China.

During the conference, QME, Ccement.com, the Industrial Culture Development Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly launched an initiative and called for all parties present to support the innovation of the spot trading model for construction materials commodities.  The initiative was unanimously and enthusiastically approved/welcomed by all participants.  The initiative proposed that all parties should work together to create a market-based pricing mechanism for construction materials commodities for fair price setting and create channels for funds to flow into the real economy in close adherence to the Mainland’s “Belt and Road” initiative, thereby achieving globalisation of construction materials commodity transactions.

In the forum session that followed, the guests shared their views on topics such as the changes of macroeconomic policies in 2020 and their impacts, the construction of an innovative commodity exchange, the outlook of the cement, construction aggregate and steel industry as well as how cloud services can facilitate the building of a technology-empowered cement industry.

With the original intention of “setting a foothold in spot market while serving the real economy”, QME has always been dedicated to the construction of financial infrastructures and creating an innovative trading platform and ecosystem to continuously provide customers with benchmark spot prices and effectively lower counterparty credit risk.  QME will continue to help enterprises increase their efficiency and reduce their costs through intensive operation on the platform and provide "financial" warehouse warrants for inventory financing and basis for verifying the authenticity of the trade background through technology empowerment.  QME will also work closely with London Metal Exchange (LME) of the HKEX Group to achieve the connection of the Mainland and overseas markets.  Looking ahead, QME will keep exploring new modes to serve the real economy so as to facilitate the transformation and upgrade of the Mainland’s commodity industry, and make headway in achieving the strategic goal of setting up an RMB pricing centre for global commodities.