CAIRO--Egypt plans to launch a commodities and financial derivatives exchange in the second half of 2011 in cooperation with a global stock exchange, the daily Al-Ahram quoted Egypt's bourse chief as saying. An agreement will be signed with one of the global exchanges that has experience in commodities and financial derivatives bourses," the paper quoted Maged Shawky as saying. "There are intensive negotiations with one of the Asian bourses with ample experience in this field," he said, adding that the new exchange would become a regional centre for trade in commodities and financial derivatives. He did not provide details on which commodities would be traded. Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer. The country of almost 80 million people is also an importer of sugar. Egyptian cotton, once the backbone of the country's exports, has gone into decline in recent years as liberalisation in 1994 exposed farmers to volatile global prices and rising fertiliser costs.
