The Feasibility of the Steel Futures Contract and the Impacts of Steel Industry

Lunching futures market for steel has been regard as one of the most urgent issues in steel industry and futures exchanges. It is followed after chairman of IISI executive committee‘s suggestion and the LME (London Metal Exchange)‘s announcement of lunching plan in May of last year. In this paper, I examine the rationale for and the feasibility of the futures contract, together with the positive and negative impacts of the contract on the steel industry. Though there exist many obstacles, LME would not stop the effort to lunch the contract. This is because the futures market for steel products is expected to provide the industry with the following benefits : ① increase of price transparency, ② weakening of price control power, ③ settling of strained trade issues, and ④ promoting industry restructuring by driving un-competitive companies out of the market.