The abolition of the rice price support program and the selling imported rice in retail markets from 2005 will give huge impacts on domestic rice markets. Among others, the market can regain the role to determine the price based on the supply and demand and so the market price will fluctuate more than before. Manufacturers, large-scaled consumer enterprises, and processors will be exposed to price risks. With increased price volatility, rice futures would be potentially most successful contract among other potential commodity futures contract that had been considered so far.
This paper argues that the rice is significant and valid for futures trading based on its growing price variability, huge market size, large number of market participants, and the relative easiness of standardization and storage, etc. This paper also provides a guideline for designing rice futures contract.