<article><p class="lead">Malaysian stock exchange Bursa, through its subsidiary Bursa Carbon Exchange (BCX), completed the country's first carbon credit auction on 16 March.</p><p>Trading firm Vitol supplied all 150,000 Verra-registered carbon credits that the BCX offered from one project each under its new global technology-based carbon contract (GTC) and global nature-based carbon contract (GNC+). The credits were purchased by 14 buyers, which were mostly government-linked companies and financial institutions from Malaysia.</p><p>The GTC contracts featured carbon credits from the Linshu biogas recovery and power generation project in China. The contracts were oversubscribed and cleared at 18.50 ringgit ($4.12) per contract.</p><p>The GNC+ contracts featured carbon credits from Southern Cardamom, which is a reducing emissions from deforestation and forestation (REDD+) project in Cambodia. These GNC+ contracts fetched a clearing price of 68 ringgit/contract at the auction.</p><p>State-owned oil and gas firm Petronas and Malaysian banks CIMB and Maybank were some of the buyers that successfully bid for the credits.</p><p>Bursa Malaysia hopes that the auction mechanism will incentivise local project owners to develop carbon credit-generating projects, by providing a clear signal on the economic viability of carbon credits.</p><p>"We welcome the government's commitment of the 10mn ringgit seed funding incentive for Malaysian-generated carbon credits to be traded on [the] BCX," Bursa Malaysia's chief executive Muhamad Umar Swift said. "We look forward to working with relevant stakeholders to facilitate the development of a vibrant VCM [voluntary carbon market] ecosystem." </p><p class="bylines">By Ryan Ang</p></article>
