China\'s biggest port city, Shanghai, plans to expand its shipping derivatives market over the next few years, a local government official said on Wednesday, as it aims to become a global financial and shipping centre by 2020, Reuters reports. Fang Xinghai, director of the financial office of the Shanghai government, said at an industry conference that the city plans to launch a series of new freight indexes and encourage shipping firms and financial institutions to establish an industry fund.

Although Shanghai has seen strong growth in its throughput of dry bulk cargo and became the world\'s top container port in 2010, it still lacks many shipping-related financial products and services.

But since the start of the year, the city has rolled out a number of financial products to help exporters and shipping companies manage growing volatility in freight rates.

The Shanghai Shipping Exchange on Wednesday launched the China (Coastal) Bulk Coal Freight Index to track spot rates to ship coal from the northern port of Qinhuangdao to Shanghai and Guangzhou.

With the coal freight index and forward contracts in place, companies will also be able to trade the forward freight rates as a way to hedge their price risks.

Earlier this year, the exchange launched derivatives based on container freight, the first in the domestic market. The container freight index is based on rates of shipping routes to the United States and North America.