Sunflower seed oil futures, options debut in Zhengzhou

China's Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange (ZCE) began trading sunflower seed oil futures and options on Thursday, filling a gap in the country's derivatives market for the world's fourth-largest edible vegetable oil and further improving the risk management system for its oils, oilseeds, and fats industry chain.

China's sunflower seed oil supply depends largely on imports, and the transit for it can take up to 50 days, leaving companies unable to effectively hedge against price decline risks during shipment. Meanwhile, there also lacks a public and authoritative pricing benchmark. To address these problems, the listing of sunflower seed oil futures and options gives companies across the industry chain a hedging tool.

"The contract adopts a combination of warehouse and factory warehouse delivery, while allowing factory warehouses to defer shipment by up to 30 days, giving sellers time to allocate supply sources globally. Delivery regions cover major trading hubs such as Jiangsu, Shanghai, Shandong, and Tianjin, which account for more than 90 percent of domestic consumption and trade volume," said Liu Yang, manager of Commodities Department I at the ZCE.

With sunflower seed oil futures and options now listed, import traders can lock in selling profits through the futures market at the time of shipment, hedging against price declines during long-haul transit. Domestic processors and reserve enterprises, meanwhile, can effectively manage fluctuations in inventory value through basis pricing and hedging.

In addition, the listing of sunflower seed oil futures and options is an important measure to support the country's oils, oilseeds, and fats industry.

"Sunflower seed oil imports come from Belt and Road partner countries, which differ from source countries of our imports of major oilseeds and oils such as soybeans and rapeseed, thus reducing the dependence on a single product or supply route. This is helpful to advance oil import diversification, and enhance China's pricing influence in the global oils, oilseeds, and fats market," Liu said.

Sunflower seed oil futures, options debut in Zhengzhou

China's appropriately accommodative monetary policy continued to deliver results in the third quarter, while the quality and effect of financial sector serving the real economy continued to improve, said the third-quarter monetary policy report released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) on Wednesday.

The PBOC, China's central bank, said in the report that the country's credit structure continued to optimize in the third quarter.

At the end of September, loans to the technology, green, inclusive finance, elderly care and digital economy sectors grew 12.0 percent, 13.0 percent, 6.5 percent, 16.2 percent and 15.7 percent year on year, respectively, all continuing to outpace overall loan growth.

Financing costs across the economy remained low, the report showed, with new corporate loans in September carrying rates slightly below 3.0 percent and new personal housing loans around three percent.

The yuan exchange rate remained basically stable at a reasonable and balanced level. At the end of September, the yuan closed at 6.7053 per U.S. dollar, appreciating 4.1 percent from the end of 2025.

Looking ahead, the PBOC said it will continue to implement the appropriately accommodative monetary policy, comprehensively use and adjust monetary policy tools as appropriate, and guide the growth of social financing and money supply to match economic growth and the expected target for overall prices.

The central bank will seek to create a suitable monetary and financial environment for stable economic growth, high-quality development and the smooth operation of financial markets.

Appropriately accommodative monetary policy continues to deliver results in Q3: Central Bank