China’s futures market saw robust expansion in the first half of 2026, with rising trade volumes and record-high capital inflows providing effective hedging tools for industrial firms, strongly underpinning the steady operation of the real economy.
In the half-year period, the national futures market recorded a cumulative trading volume of 5.1 billion lots and a total turnover of over 482 trillion yuan (about 71 trillion U.S. dollars), latest data released Saturday by the China Futures Association (CFA) showed.
These figures, representing year-on-year increases of about 25 percent and 42 percent, respectively, highlight the continuous broadening of the market’s role in serving the real economy, as more industrial and agricultural enterprises increasingly utilize futures and options contracts for risk management amid volatility in raw material and finished product prices.
Market participation by these firms has pushed the number of active clients in China’s futures market above 3 million in total. Moreover, in the first half of the year alone, 1,432 listed companies issued hedging-related announcements, an increase of more than 15 percent from a year earlier.
According to CFA officials, the trend has helped buoy the resilience and sound development of the domestic futures market.
“The futures market has remained broadly stable and continues to effectively serve its core functions, demonstrating strong resilience and vitality. To date, China’s futures market has listed 167 futures and options products, covering key sectors of the national economy such as metals, energy, chemicals, agriculture and finance,” said Xu Guoxin, vice president of the CFA.
China’s futures market turnover rises over 40 pct in H1
The President of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Annalena Baerbock, has warned that the United States’ withdrawal from multiple UN agencies weakens international organizations and harms people around the world.
In an exclusive interview with China Media Group during her recent visit to Beijing, Baerbock addressed the implications of the U.S. withdrawal from more than 60 international organizations and mechanisms by January this year, roughly half of which are UN-related.
“In an interconnected world, what happened in one part of the world affects the rest of the world, and even the biggest superpowers, they cannot protect themselves against the global crises, as climate change, as a pandemic, as we saw in COVID, but also now with relation to the war between the U.S. and Iran in the Middle East. The effects of being felt everywhere and the U.S. is calling for support, so this underlines again that even the strongest superpowers need the United Nations, need a clear set of common,” said the UNGA president.
“If they leave part of the United (Nations) organizations, this weakens the organizations, which harms people all around the world. We saw it with a lack of support now for the World Food Program. But it’s also not in the interest of the bigger powers themselves, so it’s in the self-interest of every member state, especially the strong ones, to strengthen the multilateral system and the UN agencies. And also, on a legal issue, because I’m a lawyer, I’m a strong defender of international law without any double standard, some of the organizations, you cannot just leave anyway. So even if you announce it, you are being bound by the common rules within our United Nations,” she said.
Baerbock paid a visit to China from April 29 to 30, at the invitation of Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi.
U.S. withdrawals weaken global institutions, harm people worldwide: UNGA president