Officials of the two exchanges announced the agreement at a news conference held today in Seoul, Korea. CME officials at the signing included CME Vice Chairman James Oliff and Chairman Emeritus and Senior Policy Advisor Leo Melamed. KOFEX officials present included KOFEX Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jungho Kang, Executive Director Yunhee Cho, Head of International Business Soonsik Choi.
"This MOU will form a solid basis to promote the reciprocal cooperation between the two exchanges. Through the relationship, KOFEX expects to benefit from CME's industry leadership and creativity in the field of financial products, GLOBEX® electronic trading and demutualization," said KOFEX Chairman & CEO Jungho Kang.
"We are pleased to join with KOFEX, one of the leading exchanges in the ongoing development of Asian derivatives markets, to exchange ideas on how to further grow and develop our markets and products," said CME Chairman Terry Duffy.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) is the largest futures exchange in the United States and the second largest exchange in the world for the trading of futures and options on futures. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on its trading floors and GLOBEX around-the-clock electronic trading platform. CME offers futures contracts and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moves about $1.7 billion per day in settlement payments and manages $27.7 billion in collateral deposits. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc.
The Korea Futures Exchange (www.kofex.com), established in February 1999, is the only derivatives exchange in Korea. KOFEX offers a wide variety of derivatives products: KTB futures and options, U.S. dollar futures & options, KOSDAQ 50 index futures & options, CD interest rate futures and Gold futures. In 2001, the daily volume of KOFEX skyrocketed to 47 thousand contracts with an annual growth rate of 287%. In the first half of 2002, KOFEX ranked as the 19th largest exchange in the world for the trading of futures and its daily volume recorded 60 thousand contracts. By Korean Law, in January 2004 KOFEX will take over Korea Stock Exchange's KOSPI 200 index derivatives, the most actively traded product in the world with annual volume of 854 million contracts in 2001. With the transfer of KOSPI 200 index derivatives, KOFEX is expected to be one of the leading exchanges in the world.
