Singapore Exchange: Taiwan Futures Trade Record Volume In July

Singapore Exchange (SGX) today announced that its MSCI Taiwan Index Futures contract traded a record monthly volume of 519,546 contracts in July 2003, surpassing its previous record of 463,156 contracts traded in May this year. Month-on-month, the volume traded in July this year increased 19.7% as compared to 434,204 contracts traded in July 2002.

The futures contract also broke its open interest record twice in July 2003: 91,369 contracts on 28 July and 102,156 contracts just a day later. Its previous open interest record before July was 90,233 contracts on 26 June this year.

For the period of January-July this year, Taiwan futures traded 3,090,416 contracts, a growth of 16.7% as compared to 2,648,636 contracts traded in the same period last year.

SGX's MSCI Taiwan Index Futures contract has been growing steadily since it was launched on 9 July 1997, setting consecutive annual record volumes since 2000 (see table below).

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	Jan-Jul 2003
Volume (No. of Contracts	677,295	1,842,977	1,628,977	3,390,153	3,902,738	4,628,247	3,309,416
Growth	N/A	172.1%	-11.6%	108.1%	15.1%	18.6%	N/A