MOSCOW, April 3 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Trading System (RTS) stock exchange will launch commodity futures trading, including precious metals, agricultural products and petroleum products, in May, the RTS president said Monday.

"We consider futures on gold, agricultural products and metals very promising," Oleg Safonov said.

He told a roundtable that the country's main stock exchange was seeking to allow its clients to trade commodities and that all the necessary related documents had been submitted to the Federal Service for Financial Markets.

Safonov said the RTS would coordinate basic prices with international agencies, that commodity derivatives were a priority, and that the futures market would be developed within an existing segment of FORTS, the RTS derivatives market.

Safonov said the RTS was also planning to launch futures contracts on a short term interest rates by June 1.

"We want to launch this kind of futures contract relatively quickly," he said.