The Dubai Gold and Commodity Exchange or �DGCX� started gold futures trading on November 22nd. The Exchange is a joint venture between the Dubai Metals and Commodities Centre, Multi-Commodity Exchange of India and Financial Technologies India Ltd and is fully-automated and screen based. Dubai is the physical hub of the gold market, feeding both the Middle East and India which consumed 40.4% of gold in the first nine months of this year.

India has been incredibly strong this year, especially in the first half; the average market share for these regions over 2001 to 2004 inclusive has been 35.2%. Only bars produced by approved refineries are admissible into physical delivery on the DGCX when a contract runs to maturity. Over 275 applications for membership have been received and the Exchange is in a strong enough position to turn some away as falling short of very stringent membership requirements.

DGCX announced that it had entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Chicago Board of Trade, with a view to investigating cooperative action between the two, with the aim to spread margining for certain commodity contracts and information sharing. Fineness on both exchanges is a minimum of .995, in line with London Good delivery. The DGCX contract runs seven days per week from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., thus overlapping with trading hours in the US, Europe and the Far East.