TOKYO, May 22 - Barclays Capital Japan Ltd. has applied for membership to trade precious metals, aluminium and energy on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM), an exchange official said on Tuesday.
Barclays will be the 10th non-Japanese company to acquire full membership of the exchange after the board gives its approval when it next meets on June 20.
Barclays has applied for market membership which will allow it to take part in proprietary dealing.
Barclays Capital Plc., the investment-banking arm of UK lender Barclays , has been an associate member of TOCOM since November 1994, the official said.
Japanese commodities exchanges have been struggling to raise turnover since a new law took effect in May 2005 to protect investors from what the government saw as high-pressure sales techniques, with brokers making repeated phone calls to clients.
Still, foreign institutions have shown interest in raising their profile in Japan so they can trade in the most liquid commodity futures marketplace during the Asian time zone.
In March, Standard Bank , Africa's biggest bank by assets, joined TOCOM also as a market member and was allowed to trade on its own account in precious metals, energy and aluminium futures.
World's leading investment bank Credit Suisse , U.S. heavyweights Lehman Brothers , Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are all members of the exchange.
Last week, Fimat, the brokerage arm of French bank Societe Generale's , completed a deal to buy the wholesale commodity business of Japan's Himawari CX Inc. for $9 million, gaining access to cash-rich Japanese institutions while aiming to bring foreign clients to Japan's market.
TOCOM said foreigners accounted for 20.4 percent of trades done on behalf of customer accounts on TOCOM in fiscal 2006/07, up from 14.2 percent a year ago.
Trading on customer accounts totalled 41.1 percent of overall trading on the exchange in 2006/07. The remaining 58.9 percent was proprietary trading, for which TOCOM does not disclose a breakdown.
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