DGCX launches Silver Futures trading

The Silver Futures contract is scheduled to be launched tomorrow at the World Exchange Congress being held in Dubai. His Excellency Mohammed Khalfan Bin Kharbash, Minister of State for Finance & His Excellency Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, President of Dubai Chamber of commerce & Industry are scheduled to launch the new silver futures contract at a ceremony to be held in the evening, tomorrow at "Jumeirah Beach Hotel". Delegates from "World Exchange Congress", DGCX members and other dignitaries are expected to attend the launch function.

The launch has been very appropriately positioned to happen at the "World Exchange Congress" as this event is an annual meeting place of the world's stock, derivative and commodity exchange industry. It brings together exchanges, investors, exchange customers, regulators, hedge funds, investment banks, strategists, suppliers and technology experts from all across the world.

The DGCX Silver futures contract will be a 1000 troy oz. contract with maturities in March, July, September and December each year. On maturity of a futures contract, the open position would be settled through delivery of 30 kg silver bars from 10 approved brands complying with Dubai Good Delivery standards.

Jignesh Shah, DGCX Vice Chairman, said,

"Trading in silver futures will complement the exchange's successful gold futures contracts. The new silver futures contracts are being introduced in response to growing demand and requests from our members. With the increased trading volumes and healthy liquidity witnessed in the gold futures contracts, it is an appropriate time to offer one more product to the market."

With silver prices nearing at a 22-year high, our new futures contracts offer a hedging option against the price movement to businesses dealing in silver or silver based products and also an investment opportunity to investors."

DGCX gold futures contracts have shown impressive performance since their launch in November 2005. In March 2006, the gold futures trading has notched up impressive volumes (31989 kgs of gold futures valued at $ 568 million) - a jump of around 400% over January volumes of 6478 kgs - all this in a period of 4 months from starting operations. The trading volumes on the Exchange is averaging around 1750 contracts daily with a healthy open interest of around 650. The highest volume of 3082 contracts was recorded on March 6, 2006. Since there is a high degree of correlation between gold and silver, the introduction of silver futures will provide further boost to the volumes on the exchange.

Framroze Pochara, CEO DGCX stated "We have once again delivered as promised - silver futures in the first quarter of 2006. We have set very challenging targets for ourselves for introducing a diversified basket of commodities for trading during the year which will benefit the market participants for hedging, arbitrage or investment purposes

The rapidly increasing volumes in gold futures and the push from the market for introduction of new products, reflects the confidence of the participants in the abilities of DGCX and its team".