The International Financial Services Centre Authority (IFSCA) had constituted an Expert Committee on Positioning GIFT IFSC as a Global Commodity Trading Hub (‘Committee’) in May 2024 to enable commodity trading in the International Financial Services Centre, GIFT City, Gandhinagar (‘IFSC’) with an aim to integrate IFSC ecosystem with global trade flow and capitalise on the integration opportunities with the global commodity hubs.
Pursuant to this, two sub-committees were formed to deal with the aspects of physical and merchanting trades in commodities and aspects related to development of a financial ecosystem and risk management ecosystem in commodity trading, separately. Mr. V. Lakshmikumaran, Co-founder and Managing Partner, LKS, is an honorary member of both the sub-committees.
In the past one year, the LKS Team interacted with industry players and experts in various domains. In the committee meetings, necessary challenges faced by the Indian traders were highlighted. The absence of a globally competitive trading ecosystem within the country forced many large transactions and financial services to be routed through offshore jurisdictions.
The Committee laid emphasis on creating a globally competitive platform for commodity trading in IFSC with a vision to ‘onshore the offshore’. LKS Team assisted the expert Committee in drafting the report titled ‘Report of Expert Committee on Positioning GIFT IFSC as Global Commodity Trading Hub’ (‘Report’), covering regulatory insights on International Trade and Customs Law, Direct Tax, and the Reserve Bank of India’s trade framework (Import, Export and Merchanting Trade Transactions).
The Report, as released on 1 August 2025 and available here, also provides a comprehensive analysis of global commodity trading practices, evaluation of the current regulatory and infrastructure framework at IFSC and strategic recommendations to position India’s IFSC as a leading global commodity trading hub.