The Dalian polyvinyl chloride, or PVC futures market, since being listed in May, 2009 at the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE), has grown rapidly and become the pricing center for domestic PVC products.

From its very first day on the market to April 30 this year, the total transaction volume of PVC has reached 40.93 million lots and 204.66 million tons, and the transaction value totaled 1,499,1 billion yuan ($238.72 billion).

The average daily trade volume was 178,000 lots, and the corresponding value was 6.518 billion yuan ($1.038 billion).

The record high daily trade volume hit 928,000 lots, and 37.033 billion yuan ($5.9 billion) on August 11, 2009.

Private investors took up 81.01 percent of the total transaction volume, while corporate clients took the rest in the same period.

The PVC futures contract was officially listed at the DCE on May 25, 2009. This marked the second chemical material landing at the DCE, after linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE).

The DCE is the only exchanger in the world successful in the listing and operation of synthetic resin PVC futures. The LLDPE listed in London Metal Exchange was removed from the list after a short period for lack of corporate clients.

The Dalian Commodity Exchange, a leading financial institution in Liaoning province of northeastern China, has become the world’s second, and China’s largest agricultural products futures market and the world’s largest plastics futures market since its launch in 1993.

As the market for an increasing variety of plastics futures, the DCE is expected to become a pricing and trading center of global influence on plastics standards and prices.