London, 18 May 2011

The Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange (HKMEx) began official trading at 8am HKT with a 32 troy ounces gold futures contract. Data on the new contracts can be accessed through the Bloomberg and Reuters services.

The Exchange went live with a 32 troy ounces gold futures contract denominated in US dollars, and – for the first time in Hong Kong – providing physical delivery. Trading hours are from 8am to 11pm HKT, spanning the major commodity markets in Asia, US, and Europe.

Users of the Bloomberg service can access the HKMEx gold futures contract prices by inputting IXCA <Comdty> CT into their terminals. Meanwhile, the same contract data can be viewed on Reuters terminals by typing 0#HKG:

HKMEx is also planning additional contracts in other precious metals, base metals, as well as in agricultural and energy products and commodity indices.

The Exchange will begin trading with 18 members including 15 broking and three clearing members.

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