South African Stock Exchange operator JSE Ltd hopes to list an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) for platinum this year, a top executive said, as Africa’s biggest bourse looks to tap growing appetite for commodities.

The JSE also said it was looking to launch an Africa ETF in South Africa, with blue-chip companies from elsewhere on the continent, and was separately awaiting final regulatory approval for Block X, the first dark pool in Africa.

The global economic crisis saw more investors dump equities in favour of safe-haven assets, a theme that has resurfaced in recent days as investors worry that Greece’s debt problems could spread to other countries.

South Africa’s largest ETF, Absa’s NewGold, which invests directly in gold, has soared in value as gold prices hit record highs.

“It’s a few months away at least still, even if the market conditions are right. I’m hoping that it will be this year,” JSE Chief Operating Officer Leanne Parsons told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

ETFs are listed and traded on a securities exchange and track an index, sector or commodity, offering medium to long-term investment returns with relatively little risk.

Parsons said the Africa ETF would be launched in South Africa and trade blue-chip firms from other big economies in Africa like Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria.

The firms did not have to be listed on the JSE, she said.

The JSE reported a slip in 2009 profits in March, but has hit record equity trading volumes since due to market volatility and more foreign interest in Africa’s biggest economy.

The stock exchange said on Thursday it had recorded the highest number of trades in its 123-year history on Wednesday, worth more than 20 billion rand ($2.70 billion).

Parsons said the JSE plans to start dark pool Block X by the beginning of June to aid doing large trades without having a market impact on prices.

Dark pools are trading venues that allow buyers and sellers of large stock orders to avoid revealing pre-trade information and signalling their intentions to the rest of the market.

They have gained popularity in the U.S. and Europe, where they are used as venues to trade shares anonymously away from a stock exchange, gaining market share from bourses and sparking concerns among regulators about poor market transparency.

Exchanges like London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq OMX and Deutsche Boerse have been forced to cut tariffs in a bid to keep hold of trading volumes.

However, Parsons said the JSE’s Block X would be built around its central order book and would not operate separately.

“It really is about trying to provide a facility for large orders to trade, but in the central order book so that we can not fragment liquidity, we can combine all our liquidity in our central order book,” she said.

Parsons said the JSE’s black economic empowerment (BEE) board would be launched on September 8 with petrochemicals group Sasol’s BEE scheme and she expected to eventually have up to 10 other firms, mainly blue-chip, on the board.

Companies in South Africa must meet quotas on black ownership, employment and business development as part of a government drive to shift more of the mostly white-controlled economy into the hands of the black majority.